Hatches battening

I was up the top of the garden on Weds 22 Jan 25. I gazed across the valley, through the scrubby trees to my neighbour Mattie's house. It was windless, Beaufort 0 = calm, smoke rises vertically. I reflected that, when Mattie was a chap in the 1950s, he'd have had no inkling that a big storm was brewing in the Atlantic. They were as ill informed about future weather as people were for Oíche na Gaoithe Móire The Night of the Big Wind on 6th Jan 1839. Sure, people in Dublin might have had 24 hours notice of gusty incommming, but maybe not enough certainty to contact the news desk at Radio Éireann.

We otoh have had Storm Éowyn flagged five days out, when she was brewing over water slightly warmer than usual far out in the Atlantic. I may be the only one who is fantasizing about Miranda Otto escaping from LOTR and galloping at us poor misunderstood orcs, crying havoc. Met Éireann started with an advisory, then an orange warning wind for the whole country reddening for CK KY CE and LK in the SouthWest, where landfall was expected. But as more, and more recent, data indicated more ooomph, the weather bureau went all in with a red warning wind for the whole island. They are saying that it will be as bad as Storm Ophelia [much blob] in October 2017. Here is what the wind looks like 18 hours before landfall eta 02:00 this morning:

Ophelia left us without electrics for 56 hours. Storm Darragh closed us down for 40 hours. I spent yesterday, between flat-calm Weds and fizzy Fri, doing a bit of hatch battening with doors and roofs. But really, there not a lot of prep that can be done. Here's what Éowyn looked like 12 hours later; 6 hours before the red warning kicks in.

The Blob is loaded for autopilot for a week on the usual Mo We Fr schedule, I'll put up a post-op storm report when t'internet comes back.