Red Alert for Scotland

Well this is the last night of my holiday – back to work tomorrow.  It was a Bank Holiday today, so most folks were enjoying a day off.  Just as well really as it was blowing a hoolie in Scotland.

Last night the Met Office issued an Amber Warning, so our rather excited weather chappie on the tellie told us.  Then at 8.30 this morning the alert was escalated to RED.  Panic, panic!!!!!

Actually to be fair the Highlands of Scotland got off lightly for a change. It was the central belt that was badly hit, with winds of 102mph recorded in Edinburgh.

This was all unfolding as we were having breakfast this morning.  Listening to Radio Scotland  some quick thinker, in light of the lack of any other news, had scheduled a phone in so that folk could call and have a right good moan about report what damage/difficulties the weather was causing in their area.  Listening it became clear that this was quickly becoming a bit of a competition to see who was experiencing the worst of “Hurricane It’s Blowin a Hoolie”.  Lets just say that the guy who said he was thinking twice about whether or not to take the dog out was not really in the running.

Of course there were the calls complaining that we should have more warning (note to Mother Nature – could we have more warning next time) suggesting that had the Met Office been quicker to issue the Red warning people wouldn’t have attempted to make the journeys they did into the chaos.

Now lets be honest about this, every year the snow falls and the news reports are full of cars being dug out, folk being rescued.  You can look out the window and know that the snow is so bad that you’re not going to make it, but every year people come over all invincible and just go for it .  We’re used to the snow but I think what happened today is that folk just thought, “it’s only a bit blustery I’ll be fine” as they stepped over the fallen tree in the driveway.

So lets back track a little, we got an Amber Warning, which is like “look it’s going to be pretty bad out there you need to give some serious thoughts to whether the journey is absolutely necessary”.  When it became a RED ALERT then really it’s like the Met Office shouting “GET BACK INTO YOUR HOUSE NOW”.

So if any Scottish folk are reading this, next time the Weather Guy tell us it’s a Red Alert we need to stop translating this as “you’ll need to put your boots on and make sure your hood is up”.  It’s dangerous out there guys, take care.

Maybe today was not the best day to take the kids out for a walk eh?