Islay Weather back to Normal

If you think the weather on Islay is usually as bad as the last couple of days you are in for a surprise. Mark Unsworth was testing his new camera today and sent me a picture of Machir Bay. The weather was bright, sunny and the wind eased down considerably, quite a change from the storms that battered the island only a few days ago. If you take a closer look at this picture you could easily think Mark took it somewhere in spring or summer but I can promise you he took the picture today, in fact only a few hours ago.

Bright winter weather has returned to Islay. Picture of Machir Bay by Islay Studios

In the title I wrote that the weather was back to "normal", but what is normal? If you look at the official 30 year average for Islay it shows the following: January has an average Max Temp of 7.6 deg C and Min Temp of 3.1 deg C. January also has 3.8 days with frost, 37 hours of Sunshine and an average of 142mm rain spread over 20 days. The average windspeed is 18.4 knots at ten metres height. So much for January's normal weather which was calculated for the years 1970-2000. Effects of climate change are not visible in the 30yr average chart but will certainly have an effect, the same as other places in the world. Thanks Mark for the lovely picture.

Update: Today the BBC announced that the year 2007 was the third warmest in Scotland since records began in 1914, acoording to WWF Scotland. It also showed that the warmest five years since 1914 were the past five years. Dr Dan Barlow, acting director of WWF Scotland, said: "2007 was the third warmest year ever recorded in Scotland and a year during which the country experienced dramatic or unusual weather patterns. Rainfall was higher than average in the summer months while the temperature in the winter months was much higher than normal. He said the trends backed predictions that Scotland would become warmer and wetter.