First Winter Storm hits Islay

The shipping forecast for this morning for the Hebrides gave the following warning for early Saturday morning: Northwesterly storm force 10 decreasing severe gale force 9 soon, Sea State very rough or high and squally showers. As a result many ferries in the west of Scotland are disrupted or delayed and also the Islay ferry has been effected. As a result of the adverse weather this mornings sailings will divert from Port Ellen to Port Askaig. For more information and updates you can check the Service status pages on the Calmac website. For live views I can recommend the various webcams on Islay. Specially the ones at Bruichladdich, the one at Kintra Farm and the webcam at Bowmore distillery looking towards Loch Indaal (top image) give the best weather impressions. For hourly updates on the current weather and wind I can recommend the Metoffice website. Another side effect of the storm is the cancellation of the Redbay trip from Cushendall in Antrim Ireland across the North Channel to the Ardbeg distillery today. Images of previous trips are available from the Redbay website.

Last year I started to give updates on ferry and road disruptions as an extra service to the reader. I have therefore added a section to the weblog with "important travel information". You can find this section in the right-hand column of this blog just below the weather and travel links and I will try to keep it up to date as good as possible.

Tag: travel weather ferry storm