Storm Amy, the first storm of the season, hit northern and western Europe on 3 and 4 October 2025. According to the Met Office, ‘this was an unusually severe, although not unprecedented, storm for the month of October.’ The strongest wind speed, a gust of 139 mph, was recorded in southern Norway.

We looked at some storm stories in February, but here are some more. Duncan Grant from Brock told me this one:

‘My grand-uncle Archie MacLeod lived in Brock, and in his old age I remember my aunt talking to him about the night of the Tay Bridge Disaster [28 December 1879]. Their house in Brock was very near to the shore, nearer any of the houses today. And the tide reached the bottom of the ùtraid [croft road] that night, seemingly, and sometime during the storm they had to leave the house and come up to the house where we are, their own relations, MacLeods, there. Uncle Archie would be ten years old then. I remember them saying a strange thing—I never thought much of it, because I heard this as a boy—a barrel flew over their heads … it was said to have come from the manse [in Gott]. And the next day they went down to the house and the chimney stack and walls must have still been there, and the cat had survived the night at the top of the chimney stack.’

In October 1882 there was another storm. Before the days of silage bags, much of the harvest was still lying in the fields:

AN EQUINOCTIAL GALE IN TIREE
‘Not for many years, writes our correspondent, has a storm so damaging in its resuits swept over this island so early in the season, comparatively speaking, as that of Sunday. Since Saturday, a gale from the south-east, although not of an unusual nature here, had been blowing, but had lulled considerably ere nightfall. On Sunday morning, however, the wind rose again from the same quarter, and continued to increase in violence until about four o’clock in the afternoon, when it was a perfect hurricane, reaching its height about dusk, when the wind veered to the south-west. For some time previous to this, people were endeavouring to secure what part of their crops yet remained on the fields in stooks. To do so in most cases proved impossible, however, especially to those whose crofts lay in anything like proximity to the sea. Sheaves of barley, oats and rye were carried through the air like feathers, while hay flew past like so much smoke. Seeing the uselessness of their efforts in the field, the people now betook themselves to their stackyards. Here, fortunately, they were more successful, and, as yet, we have not heard of any who have lost stacks out of their stackyards. From the fields, however, many a stack has been carried away. Of the damage to buildings, we are not yet able to say much. Mrs MacFarlane’s dwelling house at Baluive [sic], and the schoolhouse at Moss [Sgoil na Mòinteach], have been stripped, to a great extent of slates. Mr Hector Lamont’s house at Kirkapol also suffered in this respect, as did also Messrs McQuarrie & Co.’s shop [in Scarinish, on the site of the Coop], which had its skylight window blown, while the building itself received a shaking, Some of Dr Buchanan’s outhouses [Baugh Farm] came in for a share of the damage caused. Of the shipping, the Packet has suffered most, she having narrowly escaped total wreck. As it is, she has lost several planks, and been rendered unserviceable, at least for some time to come. The Go Down has been heavily strained, and will require some repair. At Ruaig, Alexander McLean had a fishing boat driven ashore, and, to some extent, broken.’
(Oban Times and Argyllshire Advertiser, 7 October 1882)

Taigh a’ Go Down ‘the house of the ‘Go Down’ was the name of one of the houses along the Sraid Ruadh ‘the red street’ in Balevullin. The equinox, the date when the sun crosses the equator, is around 20 March and 23 September. Although popularly associated with gales, this is not borne out by the evidence.

In September 1886, it was the soldiers sent to the island to quell unrest following from the Greenhill Land Raid who were hit:

GALE IN TIREE
HARDSHIPS OF MARINES
‘Early Tuesday morning, a boisterous gale arose in Tiree. The marines suffered very much, those whose tents were exposed to the gale being washed out, and the poor fellows having to seek shelter in a turf house built some time ago as an “orderly room”. A number of the tents were hauled down today, and after getting the rays of the sun for a few hours, they were again put up. On the orders of Colonel Heriot, a number of the marines are making a temporary house for themselves alongside a sandbank. The house is to be covered with canvas, the floor laid with wood, and should there be a renewal of the gale, the marines can obtain shelter in this house.’
(Aberdeen Evening Express, 3 September 1886, 2)

On 31 January 1953 there was another big storm. Hector MacPhail told this story:

‘During the big gale in 1953, there was a man in Kilmoluaig, you’ll remember him well, Alasdair Eachainn, who was another man who was good at telling stories … and I heard him telling this one myself. He was struggling home from Balevullin in the dark … and a corn stack went past him. A lot of corn stacks were knocked over that night … He said, I was asking around the next day. Who’d lost a corn stack? Nobody had lost one. I reckon it came down from Barra!’

In December 1959 there was another gale. The Fleetwood trawler Red Falcon, the last coal burning boat in the fleet, was returning for Christmas from fishing around Iceland when she was overwhelmed by the seas around Skerryvore:

‘Search parties along the coast of Tiree were looking for survivors from the Fleetwood trawler Red Falcon, missing with her crew of 19 since Monday, yesterday found part of a ship’s grey painted lifeboat. It had been washed ashore near Middleton, on the west coast of the island.’
(The Scotsman, 19 December 1959, 1)

The biggest recorded storm on Tiree was in 1968 with a gust of 117 mph, causing considerable damage around the island:

‘A feature of the month was the severe gale on the night of the 14th-15th, which caused loss of life on land and at sea. There was widespread damage to buildings, glasshouses and woodlands. Wind speeds in gusts rose to 113 miles per hour at Tiree and to 100 in some other places.’
(The Scotsman, 26 February 1968, 12)

2006.123.1 Met. Office tracing of the 1968 storm

Dr John Holliday