NOTEBOOK by Bill Heaney
Winter’s came, the snow has fell
Wee Josie’s nose is froze as well
Wee Josie’s froziz nose is skintit …
Winter’s diabolic, intit?
Looking for snow when none is falling is not usually a good idea, but in the past in West Dunbartonshire, it most certainly was just that.
Thousands of ££££££ were astonishingly involved. And when the snow ploughs and gritters hit the road, the cash was paid out smartly. It was never paid back though when they were rumbled.
It’s not true that the officers played a game of “my turkey is bigger than your turkey” in the canteen at Garshake where they were then holed up.
We can’t confirm that because most of the people involved have now departed on golden parachutes to comfortable retirement.
Public service is a duty. We all know that now that Lord Cameron, the new Foreign Secretary who replaced Suella Cruella Braverman during the week just past, has joined the Downing Street cabinet.
Of course, we would like to make it clear that none of the people involved was doing anything wrong, much as no one was doing anything out of order when some other senior officers were out wining and dining with contractors in fine dining restaurants on the hunt for lucrative work.
But that’s another story. Nothing to see here, move on … move on.
Anyway, as I mentioned earlier here, it’s cauld, intit?
So, here in The Democrat, not having our first question of this evening answered by the super cool council PR department (We should have known and, anyway, the Freedom of Information service to which they said we must go with our questions has been deemed by its own boss to be not fit for purpose) and so we won’t bother asking what the score is these days with bad weather warnings.
We’ll tell you ourselves – completely free of charge.
Gritting your teeth when you hear about bonuses paid to officials for forecasting the weather by the SNP administration in 2021.
Snowfall is expected for large parts of Scotland within the week, according to a weather map from WXCHarts, with chilly temperatures for much of the country.
The wintry weather has seen temperatures drop across Scotland with snow set to arrive within the week, according to forecasters.
Snowfall is expected from Wednesday, November 22, with the flurries becoming more widespread from Friday, November 23 and into the final weekend of the month.
According to weather maps WXCharts, snow is forecast to fall near Fort William on Wednesday before flurries spread across areas including Inverness, Portree and much of Aberdeenshire on Friday.
In fact, most of northern Scotland will see snowfall as we enter the final days of November, according to the weather map.
Around 1-3cm per hour is set to fall in the large areas impacted by the wintry weather, with heavier showers confined to parts of the country including the north western areas of the country.
Snow is set to fall across large parts of Scotland around Friday, November 23, according to this map from WXCharts, which also comes free of charge through e mail.
The Met Office long range forecast covering November 21 to November 30 suggests that higher grounds in Scotland will see snow during the latter period of this time reading: “Towards the end of the week, rain may spread south over the UK and introduce cooler conditions from the north, with some wintry showers over the hills.”
“Temperatures will most-likely be around average for the period as a whole, but as is normal in December, occasional frost and showers of a wintry flavour are possible. There are no signs at the moment of any prolonged or unusually cold conditions in this period.”
It follows a period of cold and wet weather for West Dunbartonshire and Argyll after a series of storms impacted the country in recent weeks.
Storm Babet led to widespread flooding across Scotland with homes and businesses damaged, road closures and travel disruption, as well as three deaths due to the dangerous weather conditions.
Storm Ciaran and Storm Debi followed with yellow weather warnings for rain issued by the Met Office as well as alerts of strong winds in parts of the country.
Top of page picture: Dumbarton from Garshake during cold weather. Picture by Bill Heaney. Caricature by the late Stevie Conroy