More Gales

A watery sun appeared on several occasions this morning.  The wind remained in the west but had dropped further, enough for several ships to pass through the Sound, including this one, the bulk carrier Yeoman Bank, on passage to the Glensanda quarry on Morvern.

By midday the wind was beginning to back into the south as....

....a depression, L 946, rattles in from the Atlantic - this chart, taken from the Met Office website, shows the situation at midnight tonight.  By six tomorrow morning we'll be enjoying gale force SSE winds gusting to 52mph (force 9), followed by a lull during the day, after which the system gears itself up again for another, this time northwesterly gale by six in the evening.

There's a rumour circulating among the few small birds that are left here - the rest have been blown to Aberdeen - that we're to have a complete change in the weather early next week, when the winds are going to fall light from the north, the sun's going to come out, and we're going to have some cold, bracing days.

Not that there's any rest for the birds: a sparrowhawk has been harrying them at the bird feeders.