Weather radar shift

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National weather radar on the move 23/2/14

A Met Office weather radar station on Lewis which gives early warning of incoming Atlantic storms is to be removed because it would be affected by a giant wind farm.

The facility is due to be replaced by a new weather tracking station at an Campar Mor in Ness in the north of Lewis.

Lewis Wind Power (LWP) - a partnership between Amec and French government-owned EDF Energy - will pay to relocate the present radar at Bayble in Point, Lewis, which scans 160 miles out to sea for UK-wide forecasting.

The new weather radar facility - the most northerly in Britain - will provide advance warning of severe weather approaching from the north and west.

The real-time information will help forecasters in Scotland and the wider UK and will be instrumental in fulfilling the National Severe Weather Warning Service which raised alerts of recent storms and flooding.

The Met Office points out that the Stornoway windfarm would unacceptably interfere with the Bayble radar which is in its line of sight.

Western Isles Council has given the go-ahead for the shift which will allow LWP to erect 36 giant turbines on moorland off the Lochs Road by Stornoway.

The windfarm is a smaller replacement scheme for earlier controversial plans for a £700 million network of 181 huge turbines on neighbouring land. The original proposal was thrown out in 2008 after a mass protest campaign involving thousands of people.