Storm Warning

The clouds are beginning to gather over Ben Hiant. We've already had one gale a couple of weeks back, with winds gusting to gale force 8, but the weather forecast for Monday is very bad. Around one in the afternoon the wind is predicted to be averaging force 8 with gusts up to force 12.

The small boats in Kilchoan Bay are usually fairly safe until the end of September, by which time most are in, but today saw a flurry of activity. It's the usual thing here - everybody pulling together to get the boats in, the boats belonging to absent visitors being brought in along with the locals'.

The source of this storm lies thousands of miles away to the east of the Caribbean, where the Atlantic's warm surface waters caused damp air to start rising. The resulting spinning system, called Hurricane Katia as the wind-speeds increased above 74mph, tracked westwards, then veered to the north, missing the western Caribbean islands and mainland North America before heading across the north Atlantic towards Scotland.

A nice graphic showing Katia's present position and course is available here.