After 10 years, Richard Cooke has decided to “semi-retire” from his morning forecasts for Western Isles and Tiree Weather.
Richard Cooke has always been fascinated by the weather.
“I was actually born during quite a severe storm in Blackpool in 1988,” he says. During his childhood in St Anns, he recalls “snow events” in 1995 and 1996.
“When you remember snow when you were younger, it always seems much worse than it probably was. But there was quite deep snow in Blackpool, and then we had severe gales around Christmas and Boxing Day in ’98, ’99.”
But it was as a teenager in the Western Isles that he witnessed his first truly extreme weather event.
In 2005, the Outer Hebrides was hit by the worst storm in decades, causing floods that took five lives.
Seeing the impact of such a severe storm “really accelerated my interest in the weather,” Mr Cooke says.
Years later, boosting storm and flood warnings on Western Isles and Tiree Weather would help keep his thousands of readers safe.
But in 2005, it was Mr Cooke who was finding a new community. With the internet “really starting to get into its own,” he soon found others that shared his interest.
“I realised I wasn’t the only weather nerd around.”
His passion would lead to him chasing tornadoes over the USA – “I’ve seen 23,” he says – as well as tracking the weather closer to home.
In 2012, he realised he needed a place to put the local weather news that was “clogging up” his personal Facebook.
“And that’s when Western Isles Weather started.”
‘It started to grow and grow’
Like any Facebook group, “it was slow at first.” But, he says, “as soon as the first lot of severe weather started to happen, it started to grow and grow.”
The group came together during severe weather, sharing news and resources. Mr Cooke remembers winds over 100 miles an hour, and a lightning storm that looked “like a disco at two o’clock in the morning.”
One of the biggest highlights has been seeing Comhairle nan Eilean Siar themselves list the page as a recommended source for severe weather updates.
“That was really good to see.”
Now based in Tiree himself, Mr Cooke says one of his main goals was to provide accurate weather reports for everyone in the Western Isles, wherever they were.
“What was going on in Barra was just as important to me as what was going on in Lewis.”
But, after 10 years of morning forecasts, and with 24,000 followers, he’s decided it’s the right time to “semi-retire”.
“I still love talking about the weather,” he says. But his “time commitments” have changed, and he says he “burned [himself] out” with a busier forecast schedule during the pandemic.
“It sometimes gets a bit boring talking about rain and wind. Not so much in the summer, but when it’s winter and you’re still talking about wind and rain, you just realise you need a bit of a break from it.”
‘A fantastic community’
But while the weather in the Hebrides might be gloomy, Western Isles and Tiree Weather has always been a bright spot.
“It’s a fantastic community,” says Mr Cooke – and one he’s especially proud of considering the “double-edged sword” of the internet.
“You can go to the comment sections on just about anything, and there’s a lot of fighting. One person says orange, another person says green.”
While his daily written reports might be stopping, the positive community he’s built isn’t going anywhere.
Mr Cooke still sharing weather warnings from the Met Office, and is keeping the page as a place for local people and meteorology enthusiasts to share photos and discussion.
He’s “not sure” if he’ll come back to his morning weather reports, but is keeping an open mind.
In the meantime, he’s “enjoying having a little bit more free time” – as well as a “longer snooze in the mornings”.
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