>As I drove the truck along the Glasgow-bound along the M77 from Saltcoats this afternoon, the rain was battering off the windshield. About 1-2 inches of water covered the surface of the motorway and traffic crawled as they headed over the exposed, higher ground near Fenwick, Ayrshire.

Extremely heavy pockets of rain have been rotating around a low pressure center just off the northwest Scottish coastline and thus bringing days of torrential rainfall and in some areas such as Northern Ireland, exposed Scottish west coast and mountain-tops, strong winds gusted to gale-force, even severe gales in areas. My grandfather was explaining over the phone, fierce winds blew through my grandparents home village of Bessbrook, Co Down in southeast Northern Ireland.

He also stated about a football match (soccer) between Lisburn Distillery and Coleraine in Northern Ireland was cancelled within 16 minutes after the game commenced under ideal conditions, the cause of the abdonment of this match was due to extreme downpour of rain and hail which flooded the pitch, this was a remarkable speed of pitch flooding..

According to some reports, a tornado was reported south of London, all associated with the complex entrainment of differing air masses of different origins and the energy of the low.. This time of year is fickle to rough weather as cooler northerly air hits against warmer southerly air pushing up from Spain, fall season can be some of the most energetic times in the atmosphere and certainly Oct-November 2009 is certainly on the extreme side for precipitation across the British Isles.

Here in Scotland, the Aberdeenshire, the town of Stonehaven was flooded, due to excessive rainfall and many longtime residents stated that they had never seen anything like this before in Stonehaven.

It seems like this pattern is never ending. A pattern that began back in July just after a stunning warm and dry May and June. August saw record montly rainfall totals in Eskdalemuir in Dumfries and Galloway.

With my new job as a truck driver, I drive down to Dumfries every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and with only two journey’s down there so far, heavy rain showers and at times blinding rain has been the story so far. The M74 motorway which connects Glasgow to the border with England can be high and remote with some exposed areas open to the Solway Firth, often during bad weather, gales blow in off the Irish Sea into the Solway Firth and across southern Scotland’s wilderness of trees and mountainous/hilly terrain. This region can be very wet and windy like much of the country and I look forward to driving this regularly through the winter. I shall carry my camera in the occation where the weather may be worth photographing.

I also drive along a portion of the West Coast between Largs-Ardrossan and Saltcoats and often during stormy weather when gales blow in off the sea, huge waves slam against the sea wall and beaches, I shall try also for photographs then..

Gone are the 60s and now upper 40s to around 50 degrees is the best highs we can achieve across much of the UK mainland as a strong oceanic push is bringing more typical November chills as those, moist winds, low level “racing” clouds and frequent, heavy showers is the name of the game.

Here’s some links to the recent bad weather across Britain.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8337149.stm

Thanks for reading.

-Mark