If the first three days of the start of this blog are anything to go by it could be a very wet finish to the month. We have had torrential rain all three days and as you will see from the first set of shots below the rivers are reflecting this. Our county even got a mention on the national weather forecast this morning as getting the worst of the rain. It is at least getting colder, a bit nearer the average temperature for the month, but no sign of snow on the hilltops, let alone at our level.
18th.
During a short break in the rain (well just a drizzle compared to overnight) I went out in the car to photograph all three of the rivers that flow within our village boundary.
Firstly comes the little river that is fifty yards downhill from our home the Fender. This at the bottom of our hill joins the ——
River Tilt which is most probably double the height it normally is. This river about two hundred and fifty yards further on joins the ———
River Garry, in fact if you look along the river you will see the water line where the Tilt joins.
Due to the weather I didn’t go any further along the Garry’s course as this outside Pitlochry joins the River Tummell, which then goes on a further ten miles and joins the mighty River Tay.
Not wanting to be left out the small lade that feeds the watermill (the one with the cracking cafe that I always go on about) has a fair bit of water in it also.
22nd
So what happens three days after the above post? Below is what happens.
Our two nearest Munro’s get a good dusting of snow and the temperature drops down to minus three at night and did not go above five during the day for the next three days. Though a memory on Facebook tells me eleven years ago on this day we had four inches of snow on the drive, so not fully back to normal conditions for this time of the year.
27th.
The weather soon reverted back to rain and more or less hasn’t stopped for the last two days and nights, so looks like this could be our normal pattern with global warming. The River Fender (that I showed you at the beginning of the blog) has not captured the water off the hills yet but still had a good flow on it as these two shots show from this morning.
Looks so peaceful here just before it hits the small weir.
This is it before and after the weir. You can tell the power it does have when in spate by the size of those trees hanging over the weir, that had been washed down the river.
2nd.December.
These last two are from a trip fifty miles East, well out of the Cairngorms, but I wanted to show you a contrast. Exactly twelve years ago today (according to my Facebook memory slot) we walked half a mile up from our house and stood in knee deep snow. Today we went along Loch Tay to Killin and it was eight C and a calm mild day, foggy and not even on the “tops” was there any snow.
Loch Tay from Kenmore.
We stopped on the way back at The Inn on The Tay for some lunch, here is where the International canoeing slaloms takes place and plenty of water in the river for that today. The wires are for placing the poles that the canoeist have to negotiate.