I confess it rains
by - 12:00 on 14 January 2008
I was once asked to write an information sheet on Scottish weather for the national tourist board. It was quite a long time ago. So I dug out the weather stats: the usual stuff about the east of Scotland being drier than the west; the temperature range being quite limited and without extremes – neither very hot nor very cold. In fact, I just described the general weather scenario: Scotland on the edge of Europe, sticking out into the ocean so that it becomes the battleground where moist oceanic weather systems meet the more stable air of the continental land mass. (Keep up here, will you?) Basically, it’s our position that gives us changeable weather and gives us something to talk about when we meet in the street. Or write in our blogs.
Anyway, for the weather information sheet of long ago I did point out that it can be quite wet in the west, because of the south-westerlies off the Atlantic. In fact, I quoted the summer rainfall statistics for Fort William, which has so successfully branded itself as ‘Scotland’s Outdoor Capital.’ Now this next bit is true. Apparently (and this was a long time ago, I stress) some high heid yin who came from Lochaber thought this was not the sort of thing that visitors should know. The information sheet (one of a series on Scotland) was never distributed!
How different today. Yes, we admit it now. Sometimes it rains here. Sometimes it’s sunny. Other times it’s somewhere in between. VisitScotland are positively encouraging about the, uhmm, sheer variety of our weather. And even storm watching is looked upon favourably. How relaxed is that?
Snow at sea level on the Moray Firth, Macduff. This is unusual
Some time ago I bumped into a chum who runs a sailing school on the Moray Firth coast. He was looking glum and was distinctly put out by the fact that his local tourism group had decided to promote storm-watching along the often sunny, low rainfall, comparatively sheltered Moray Firth coast. He remarked that making a link between poor weather and an area otherwise noted for its favourable and dry-ish weather statistics did not make his promotional job any easier.
Having a cool maritime climate without extremes means you can say anything you want about it. But you’re not going to convince me that there’s anything ‘sub-tropical’ about Inverewe Gardens for instance. It’s just that that commonly-used expression seems more exotic and beguiling than the prosaic ‘temperate’. (I should admit I have on occasion had to allude to that old chestnut of ‘warm waters of the Gulf Stream bathing the coastline’. It’s so much more romantic than the North Atlantic Drift.)
However, the reality is that there’s no Oklahoma twister-chasing here or months of winter freeze up. A couple of inches of snow make headlines, as do a few days of sunshine. Sure, we can do storms but rather than promoting this in a big way perhaps we should be realistic and publicise drizzle-watching. ‘Ogle our overcast’ ‘Delight in the dreich’ and so on.
This was Glen Turret on Saturday 12th January 2008. About -3C, crisp and clear, still and crunchy underfoot. Overnight it went to around +8C with driving rain. By Monday it was still again with mist and a temperature inversion. I’d be very happy never to write a paragraph on Scotland’s weather again. All of this suggests that the best way to treat Scotland’s weather might be to ignore it completely. After all, it’ll be different tomorrow.
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