Ophelia incommming

The L picture is a still from https://earth.nullschool.net/ which tracks winds in real time all over the world; it shows the whole of the Atlantic. The site allows you to rotate the globe, so I can assure you that the zoom R of incommming Ophelia is the most exciting thing happening on the planet at this time. The arrow is to show the direction of travel. This Mother of Storms is about to travel through Ireland for shortcut.  Schools are all closed including (message at 2045 last night) The Institute, so I'm hunkered down at home. We spent yesterday afternoon battening down the hatches, reefing the tops'ls, and securing the raffle about the decks. We've made sure the life-boat has water [no electricity no pump] and ships biscuit and there is fuel for the wood-burning stove, so we can heat soup and make chapattis. I also took 20 minutes to fuel-up and sharpen the chainsaw and put that in the back of the car . . . before the news of school closure came through.  The blessing is that, in contrast to the Big Wind of January 1839, Ophelia is making her passage in daylight.

The Darwinday Storm of Feb 2014, when I had to cut my way back home through a fallen tree, is in the Ha'penny place compared to Ophelia which is said to be bigger than Charley 1986 and possibly bigger than Debbie in 1961.  Reading up about those big Irish storms of the last century shows that we have way more information now - see frighteningly beautiful maps above - than back then. The meteorologists 'lost' Debbie for a few days between the Cabo Verde, where it killed a planeload of people, and its arrival in Ireland.  No amount of information or preparation is going to keep trees upright if they are worked to their resonant frequency.  The other blessing is that Ophelia will pass quickly through on her flight to Russia and this time tomorrow we'll tidy up and move along too.