‘We haven’t seen the sun since January 21’: Life beneath Aberdeen’s record-breaking gloom

As she pushes her baby son in his pram around one of Aberdeen’s historic areas, Milea Leone is quietly amused by the irony spelt out in the street names.

For although they are strolling along the distinctly summery-sounding Sunnyside Road, past Sunnyside Walk and round the corner to Sunnyside Place, one thing is conspicuously absent: the sun.

“It makes me chuckle,” says the 30-year-old. “This part of the city is called Sunnyside – but for ages now it’s been nothing but grim and grey.”

Usually ranked as one of the sunniest places in the UK and nicknamed Scotland’s “sun city” by some owing to its east coast setting, the Met Office has confirmed that Aberdeen is currently experiencing a record-breaking spell of bad weather – with absolutely no sight of the sun for at least 20 whole days now.

Thanks to a quirk of meteorology, the city has been plunged into the longest period of sunlessness since records began in 1957, with official data showing no sunshine since January 21.

To add soggy insult to gloomy injury, Aberdeen has also been hit with a month-and-a-half’s rain in just a week.

Leone and her three-month-old son, however, are not deterred by the conditions and are both impressively insulated – her in a thick outdoor coat, him in a snug woolly hat and cosy blanket.

“It’s not usually like this at all,” she says. “I moved to Aberdeen five years ago and was impressed that it was so sunny so much of the time. I’m currently a stay-at-home mum – and when the weather’s this bad, it really is tempting just to stay at home. But my baby boy loves going out, so we wrap up and get on with it.”

Not all Aberdonians, though, are as good-naturedly defiant in the face of the sunless days. When the Telegraph visits the city on Monday, some speak of being driven to despair by the endless grey and reveal various coping strategies, from topping up on vitamin D via supplements to booking a sunbed.

Others are taking things further still and are plotting beach holidays and Caribbean cruises. A few have simply had enough – and are planning to emigrate.

For city resident Charley Craig, it’s certainly all getting too much.

“I’m 25, but this weather means I look about 35,” she says. “My skin feels awful; it’s so pale and dry. I’ve started taking vitamin D to make up for the lack of sunshine.’

The weather, she says, is also having an impact on her three-year-old son Leighton and nine-year-old daughter Tammi.

“They don’t want to go out,” she explains. “They don’t want to walk to school. They’re bickering more and falling out with each other. Honestly, the greyness is bad for our mental health... It’s exhausting.”

As well as a short-term plan for a trip to the tanning salon, Craig is also hoping to escape Aberdeen’s grim weather for good – by relocating to the US. “I can’t wait to get under a sunbed... And then it’s time to move.” she says.

Of course, plenty of Aberdonians are not minded to abandon ship, despite the growing sense of despair.

Among those staying put is Allan Robertson, who has opted instead for stoic resolve – and has headed out with a couple of friends for 18 holes at the Nigg Bay golf course.

It is, he says, the only course in the area that is still playable: all the others are waterlogged.

Unsurprisingly, given the drizzle, they are the only people out on the fairways. To counter the low light, they are using neon-yellow hi-vis golf balls.

“I’ve lived in Aberdeen all my life, but I’ve never seen it like this before,” says Robertson, 65. “The lack of sun is a bit of a downer and makes it so much harder to get out of bed in the mornings. But you have to adapt; you have to be determined to enjoy your day no matter how depressing the weather is, otherwise you’d just be trapped in the house all the time.”

The Nigg Bay course – which sits on a spit of land jutting out from the coast – offers a fine viewpoint across the harbour to the city centre.

A heavy sky presses down on the grand array of towers and spires, while the darkness of the morning amplifies the greyness of the city’s distinctive granite buildings.

“Aberdeen is known as the Silver City, because when the sun shines, the granite sparkles,” Robertson says. “But on days like these, it’s not silver – just dull grey.”

So what is going on? Why has Aberdeen apparently sunk into perma-gloom?

According to Met Office forecaster Marco Petagna, the city has fallen victim to a complete reversal of the conditions which normally make it one of the sunniest places in Scotland. “It’s been really unusual,” he says.

As a rule, rain blows in from the Atlantic on a prevailing westerly wind, making Scotland’s west coast wet and cloudy, while Aberdeen – sitting on the east coast and protected by the nearby Cairngorm mountains – stays relatively dry and bright.

“Aberdeen is usually quite sheltered as it sits in a ‘rain shadow’; the air typically dries out as it comes in from the west and passes over the hills,” Petagna explains.

Records from a 30-year period show Aberdeen can typically expect 84.4 hours of sunshine throughout the month of February – averaging around three hours a day. Recently, however, conditions have conspired to rob the city of its sun.

“Patterns have been pretty much the opposite to usual,” says Petagana. “A high pressure to the north of the UK has stopped the low-pressure system from moving away – and there’s been a persistent south-easterly wind. As a result, Aberdeen has been exposed to moisture coming off the North Sea, and, oddly, it’s the west coast that’s been sheltered by the hills.”

On an interesting technical note, the daily duration of sunshine is still measured by meteorologists using a piece of Victorian technology called a Campbell Stokes recorder, in which a solid glass sphere, slightly bigger than a cricket ball, focuses sunlight onto a piece of photosensitive card.

As the sun moves around during the day, it marks different parts of the card to provide a record of how bright the sun was and exactly when it was shining.

Over the past weeks, not a single mark has appeared on the card at the monitoring station for Aberdeen.

“It’s the longest period of sunlessness for almost 70 years, since records began,” Petagna says.

The unusual conditions have also reversed patterns of rainfall. Aberdeen saw 97.3 mm of rain in the first week of February – which is 145 per cent of the amount the city would usually receive throughout the entire month. By contrast, in the same period, the west coast only saw 8mm of rain – just 5 per cent of its usual February precipitation.

Even for Aberdonians who are not minded to leave the city permanently, the relentless gloom is making a temporary dash for the sun seem increasingly attractive.

Georgia Smith at Ramsay’s World Travel, a local travel agency, reveals that bookings for trips abroad have leapt in recent weeks.

“We’re always busy at this time of year, but we’ve been even busier over the past couple of weeks,” she says. “People haven’t necessarily been coming into the shop, but we’ve had loads of emails and phone calls. They’re desperate to book cruises and beach holidays, just to get away and enjoy some sunshine.

“Even if they’re not heading off immediately, having something booked gives them something to look forward to – something to help them get through the grey sunless days. And there have been a lot of those.”

Just back from a trip abroad is Isabella Low. As she walks past the Suntrap tanning salon on John Street – which is plastered with a life-size picture of a young woman sunbathing in a bikini – she becomes a little wistful.

“I was on holiday in Miami; it was 29 degrees and lovely all the time,” she says. “But I came back to Aberdeen in January, and I haven’t seen the sun since. It’s depressing.”

The 74-year-old lives in sheltered accommodation close to Aberdeen beach and loves to spend the sunny summer days outdoors in the garden. “But”, she says, “there’s no chance of that at the moment.”

She’s also worried that the current spell of sunlessness is symptomatic of a bigger problem with the climate. “We’re seeing it with the snow, the rain, and the wind,” says Low. “The weather seems to be getting more and more extreme.”

According to Petagna at the Met Office, she may be right. “A warming world means we need to expect more extreme weather events,” he says. “For every degree the temperature rises, the atmosphere can hold seven per cent more moisture – which means more clouds to block out the sun and more rain to fall from the sky.”

Right in the centre of Aberdeen stands the city’s Town House, the turreted granite headquarters of the local council. Mounted on one of its walls is a 19th-century metal sundial which is currently rendered useless by the prolonged lack of sun.

And, according to the forecasters, there is little chance of passing shoppers being able to use it any time soon.

“The sunlessness is due to continue, with a couple of days of heavy rain followed by a change in the wind direction that will bring snow and wintery showers,” says Petagna. “So there’s not much chance of sunshine in Aberdeen for quite a while.”

[Source: Daily Telegraph]