The First Storm of the Winter

Storm Austen missed us but Storm Boelo made up for it by hitting the northeast coast of Scotland hard, closing the A9 in several places, taking out the power supply to tens of thousands of households, and gusting at times to over 60mph. We spent most of the day hoping against hope that we, in our modern, all-electric house, would not lose our supply, knowing that we wouldn't last long if we did.

Our daughter, who has a croft towards Dornoch, lost her power in the early afternoon, but she's well-prepared, with battery storage for electricity, a log stove which does things like boil the kettle, and a Starlink connection which doesn't go down with the electricity. So she can survive quite well for a few days, her electricity board telling her that she won't get her supply back until Tuesday evening.

Yet, despite some fierce gusts during the daylight hours yesterday, walking down to the village this morning there was little sign of damage, the only evidence of the storm that I could find being a couple of trees in the forestry, above, which had come down but been quickly cut up and removed by the Estate.

So last week saw our first ground frost of the year on Monday, and the first storm of the year on Sunday; and we had another glorious red sunrise, which forecasts yet another lively weather day to come.