Leader: Never a dull moment with our weather

WEST and central Scotland battered by torrential rain; schoolchildren among more than 40 rescued by firefighters; commuters facing misery as motorways and rail lines are closed; dogs forced to doggy paddle throught the floods.

The forecast is for further bad weather and storm-force winds. And after all this? The prospect of freezing winter temperatures.

It seemed only yesterday we were enjoying one of the warmest spells of weather on record for late autumn. Across much of Scotland, pavement cafés and restaurants enjoyed a late boom. And in our gardens, trees and shrubs became confused. Buds began to form. Spring growth was evident. Now comes the reckoning. We are caught, once again, in the extremes of weather: balmy days one week, freak rain and floods the next. It would be easy to construct a doomsday scenario of a land increasingly prone to climate change. This may be so. But we cannot know with any certainty what lies ahead.

What we do know is that we are part of an island forever exposed to wet winds from the west, chill winds from the north – and haphazard weather from the south and east. It is only right such a phenomenon be graced with an enduring and easily recognisable name. How does “Scottish weather” sound?