As forecast, severe winter weather is hammering Scotland full force today with gale or severe-gale force winds. In a comment early this morning, I wrote on facebook that ‘this is no ordinary westerly wind’, of course this is a wind direction not normally associated with cold and snow, however thanks to a series of meteorological circumstances coming together, a powerful gale is driving air straight from Greenland across to Scotland. Noticed the wind growing colder as today has worn on?

120 mph Wind Gusts

According to STV, a wind gust of 120 mph was recorded on top of 4,085ft Cairngorm Summit at 4am this morning while winds in excess of 70 mph have affected many western coastal areas and islands. The BBC have also reported wave heights off the Western Isles reaching an astonishing 23 metres or 75ft. 75 mph winds throughout the Western Isles overnight caused power outages ans close closed today.

Conditions have gradually worsened as the day has worn on as winds have increased and the air has grown increasingly colder. Early this morning, the temperature here at my house was a balmy 8C but as of 1.30pm this afternoon it was down to 3C with sleet driven in on a strong west wind.

Bitter Cold Is Coming Straight From Greenland

Icy gales have battered the country throughout this afternoon with winds driving colder and colder air in from some 2,000 miles away. In a video last night, i shared with you how there was colder air seen by the models about 1,000 miles west of Scotland that was heading our way.

Through this evening, this colder air will sweep in aboard those very strong westerly winds. Heavy snow coupled with 60-80 mph wind gusts is making for extremely hazardous conditions. Roads may very well get shut due to blizzard conditions and blowing and drifting. Higher level routes are most likely to be affected with even low levels perhaps receiving a covering to 2 inches of snow through the rest of tonight into Tuesday. Considerably higher amounts over higher ground. Significant drifting can be expected also along with severe wind chills.

Heavy sleet or snow showers will continue to rattle in overnight but as the low responsible for this stormy weather positions itself more towards our northeast through Tuesday, winds shall turn northwesterly and ease with time. Cold weather will hang around through the rest of this week as a northerly flow will continue to drive arctic air south which will keep any snow on the ground for quite some time to come.

Exceptional Wave Heights Off The Western Isles

Wave heights have been exceptional off the Western Isles and likely due to powerful gale or severe gale-force winds blowing across a huge fetch of the Atlantic which is allowing the ‘build-up’ of waves. According to Arne Vogler, a senior research engineer and principle investigator at the Hebridean Marine Energy Futures project, wave heights of 75 feet were recorded off the Western Isles.

Here’s a piece from an article on today’s BBC website.

Mr Vogler said: “For context, average wave heights depend highly on the time of the year. In the winter we quite often see heights of 3-5m, where in the summer this is often down to 0.5-2m.”

The engineer said the waves were energy rich.

He said that if it was possible to harness the power of waves hitting the entire length of the Western Isles’ Atlantic coastline on Monday, they would equate to 120 nuclear power stations on maximum electricity generation output.

Here’s a video i captured from earlier today near Ayr.

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