Argyll and Bute climate is wet and mild. A quick check on the MET sites shows that there's about 3 times as much rain than in the West Midlands, where we've lived for over 20 years, but that's why it's so green and we know the deal. October is also the second wettest month of the year.
Early October, the south of the UK was enjoying temperatures of up to 20 Celsius and little rain, whilst Argyll and Bute was getting literally hammered with rain. A month's worth of rain, 5-6 inches fell in just 36 hours. We were still in the Midlands, 400 miles away, but could see things developing on the news.
First was a landslide on the A83 between Rest & Be Thankful and Inveraray. Then, more landslides on the Tarbet to Rest section. The aerial view is a few miles down the road from where we live, at the turn to Tighnabruaich. The river banks have burst, but the relatively new road remained above the flood levels. Whenever there's flooding, there's always sheep - and sheep always seem to survive.
Could we do the journey between old house and new right now? With difficulty!
Climate change, or just a month's rain in a day? Well - you decide, but what we'll say is the A83 is prone to landslides after heavy rain ... so much so that many schemes have been proposed including over 1km of landslide debris catching 'veranda' over the road, a viaduct and a tunnel. Earlier this year (2023) after a number of years of 'temporary' traffic lights, the most recent round of prevention measures was finished. The recent measures included many landslip nets to catch debris before it reaches the road. Landslides have closed the road in at least 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2020. According to the web site, in recent years landslips have become more common. Maybe the engineering works themselves have made the situation worse, as it's certainly not solving the issue?
The British Archeological society even has a web page on it: https://www.bgs.ac.uk/case-studies/rest-and-be-thankful-a83-2011-landslide-case-study/
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