The Wind Off the Small Isles Only two days after arriving there, Cora decides she wants to buy a house. While driving around the island they reach Playa Blanca and Cora sees just the house she is looking for. She sends Perdita to ask who owns it. Perdita, after getting no answer at the front door, meets Michael in the grounds who is supervising building work. There is a mention of Julian Gale from Stewart's earlier novel, "This Rough Magic". The Wind Off the Small Isles The Wind Off the Small Isles is a novella by Mary Stewart, first published in 1968. Unlike her other works,
Cumulonimbus and aviation at this altitude, updraughts with speeds that can exceed . Such an updraught speed corresponds to the wind speed of a small hurricane. The speed can even exceed . The maximum number in the Beaufort scale is 12 ("hurricane force" wind) and is assigned to wind speeds of 64 knots or greater. If the Beaufort scale were extended, these updraughts would have a Beaufort number of 14 "in the vertical direction". The turbulence is then "extreme" at this altitude. Moreover, the diameters of the updraught columns vary between 2 km (air mass thunderstorm) and 10 km (supercell thunderstorm). The height