Encouraged by a forecast of "cold and clear with wall to wall sunshine" in
the West of Scotland last Friday, I travelled from Perth (in the East of
Scotland) via Fort William to the Isle of Skye and finally up to Gairloch in
NW Scotland.



The only thing that was 'wall to wall' was the layer of gloomy grey cloud,
and with the exception of a tiny patch of sun at Kyle of Lochalsh, we never
saw the sun all day.



This reminded me of an incident several years ago when I vividly remember
leaving St Kilda in a hurry in the face of F6/7 winds forecast for the
following 24 hrs, only to have to motor for the next three days because
there was no wind at all.



Question: Is there an underlying reason why the current forecasting models
seem to struggle with the persistence of, and local effects associated
with, high pressure systems? (although I'm not sure that the journeys I
described can fairly be called local).



Many Thanks



Iain McKay