By Paul Homewood
It has been variously described as “The Storm of the Century”, “Unprecedented”, “Superstorm” and “A repeat of 1987”. I refer, of course, to the St. Jude storm that passed through early this morning and is now headed off into the North Sea.
Let’s have a look at the impact, and see how it compared to other recent storms in the UK. We have not yet got confirmed figures from the Met Office, but it is unlikely they will be much different to the provisional data below.
The Daily Mail have this useful map, which seems to sum up things nicely.
The Telegraph report that the highest windspeed recorded on the mainland was 82mph at Langdon Bay in Kent. The next highest, 79mph, was in Essex.
Winds of this speed are not unusual in the UK, albeit less common in the south. It was only last year that Scotland experienced a similar storm, as the Met Office report.
The worst affected area was southern Scotland – particularly the Central Belt – where winds gusted at well over 70 knots (81 mph). In this area, this storm was judged as the most severe for 13 years – since 26 December 1998, with wind speeds exceeding those of the recent storm of 8 December 2011. Very strong winds were also experienced across much of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, with winds here also widely gusting at 50 to 60 knots (58 to 69 mph).
In England, you have to go back to January 2005 for a comparable storm, this time in the North of England. Again, from the Met Office:
January 7/8 – as a very deep depression (reaching 962 mb) tracked north-eastwards across southern Scotland, strong winds battered England and Wales particularly northern areas. Gusts in excess of 70 knots (81 mph) were recorded from the Isle of Man and north Wales across to the coast of north-east England. 88 knots (101 m.p.h.) was recorded at St Bees Head (Cumbria) and 89 knots (102 m.p.h.) at Aberdaron on the Lleyn peninsula (Gwynedd).
In southern England, the St Jude storm was the strongest since October 2002, when highest gusts of 102mph were recorded at the Needles,( as against 99mph this year). In 2002, the storm hit the west of England and Wales hardest, but, nevertheless, winds over 80mph hit inland areas, such as Cottesmore, in Rutland, which recorded 70 knots (80mph).
The map below suggests that more of the country was affected. (Remember that 60 knots is at least 70mph).
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/interesting/27oct2002storm.html
Neither the storm of 2002 or this year’s come anywhere close to the Burn’s Day storm of 1990, or the Great Storm of 1987.
Burns’ Day Storm – January 1990
From the Met archives:
Burns’ Day Storm – 25 January 1990
However, in many places wind speeds were comparable to or higher than October 1987. January 25th is the day when many Scots remember the birthday of their national poet Robert Burns.
Impacts
The strong winds affected a much larger area than in October 1987 and they struck during the day so consequently there were more deaths and injuries, with 47 lives lost. The wind speeds were comparable to those in 1987, but higher over parts of southern England and Wales. Once again there were disruptions to power supplies and to transport, particularly to road transport because of fallen trees and overturned vehicles. There was also considerable damage to buildings, particularly to housing and to the south of a line from west Wales to Suffolk. The loss of trees was less than in October 1987 since the strongest winds occurred in less wooded areas and deciduous trees were bare of leaves.
Weather Data
The synoptic chart for 12 GMT, 25 January 1990.
The strongest winds were in the late morning and afternoon, with hourly mean speeds in excess of 40 kn (46 mph) across a large part of southern England and Wales and over 50 kn (58 m.p.h.) at exposed places along the coast. Gusts of over 80 kn (92 m.p.h.) were reported along coasts in west Wales and from Cornwall to Kent. The highest gusts recorded were 93 kn (107 m.p.h.) at Aberporth in west Wales and at Gwennap Head in Cornwall. The return period (average frequency of occurrence) of the maximum gusts was estimated at more than 100 years at places from Dorset to west London.
The Great Storm of 1987
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/t/5/October_87_Storm_-_16_October_1987.pdf
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Robert Brown: While I don’t disagree with the thrust of your statement I’d like to point out that hurricane season ends 30 Nov – we have 33 more days. Just a nit, but an important one.
It rained a bit on Anglesey last night, my cat was rather damp when he came in this morning for breakfast. Did not notice any wind as such, but my wife says it’s because I’m deaf and have no sense of smell.
Bit of background on other storms. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-24712601
ahem. 🙂 I mentioned this one coming one week ago:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/10/europe-australia-10-day-forecasts-new-weatherstreet-com-products/
Some impressions after the storm:
University of Göttingen, Germany:
http://cdn4.spiegel.de/images/image-561807-galleryV9-heqy.jpg
http://cdn3.spiegel.de/images/image-561656-galleryV9-fkie.jpg
London Hounslow:
http://cdn4.spiegel.de/images/image-561603-galleryV9-qbjp.jpg
Norderney (German Island, North Sea):
Historical Wind Mill:
Rhys Jaggar says:
“The storm arrived one day early,”
Two days early, 27/28th, bang in the middle of the most likely gale days in the Continental Trains period:
http://www.metcheck.com/UK/singularities.asp
lsvalgaard says:
October 28, 2013 at 12:11 pm
Piers Corbin had, of course, predicted this one 🙂 or did he?
=====================================================
Piers Corbyn did in his mid-Sept forecast. But he was a day out, 29th Oct not 28th.
Well Lsvalgaard did predict 16 y of non warming… NOT.
@ur momisugly Roy Spencer says:
“ahem. 🙂 I mentioned this one coming one week ago:”
Gold star and a tick for you immediately RS… ;o))
Nice call Roy Spencer.
Gareth Phillips says:
October 28, 2013 at 3:54 pm
It rained a bit on Anglesey last night, my cat was rather damp when he came in this morning for breakfast. Did not notice any wind as such, but my wife says it’s because I’m deaf and have no sense of smell.
—————————————————————————————————————————–
Don’t let her fool you – it had nothing to do with your hearing. I was awake in Aberffraw between about 1 and 4:30 AM and it was far calmer than it’d been on Sunday morning. By the time I got up again at 8 it was threatening sunshine!
Here is a light storm that did very little damage during colder times.
Here is Lamb of CRU suffering from hallucinations about great storms of the Little Ice Age affecting the British Isles.
Great storms are just a thing of the present. Adults just don’t know what a great storm is. It is an unknown and exciting event. Adults used to play with virtual storms. Sheeeesh! It’s called the weather and not the climate.
This man is out of his mind. Global warming will lead to more dangerous storms. We must think about the children and stop denying CAGW.
It’s all hot air to me. Feeling hot, hot, hot. We must act then!
I blame St. Jude.
View from the Solent says:
October 28, 2013 at 4:36 pm
Piers Corbyn did in his mid-Sept forecast. But he was a day out, 29th Oct not 28th.
Do you have a link to his forecast that gives the date?
Condolences to the families of the people tragically killed yesterday!
I was out yesterday morning and drove to North Shields, the North Sea here was calm, hardly a wave, no wind at all. At noon I was back in Newcastle and the wind came out of nowhere, definitely not severe and died out late last night. We were spared the worst here in NE England. Despite the fact that our islands are not very big, the weather can vary a great deal from region to region, but as someone said earlier, we are very South East centric. In the past we have had severe weather conditions here (one winter Newcastle was completely cut off by snow and it only got a brief mention in the national press).
lsvalgaard
Do you have a link to his forecast that gives the date?
Piers Corbyn sells his forecasts, it’s the way he makes his living. The earlier post by Rhys Jagger says
“The above is from Piers Corbyn’s October 30day ahead forecast, for the period 29th October to 31st, for which I am a subscriber and I received the forecast on 1st October.”
Being the BBC they don’t even check their own website for recent similar storms
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6272193.stm?oo=0
Gareth Phillips, here on the hill near Llanddeusant Fri /Sat was high winds with rain showers Sunday was A lot calmer no damage no floods but a couple more of the life saving turbines packed up again !
Since I dont describe to Piers’s posts, I did find the public post where he shows the Sept 17 issue.
http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews13No44.pdf He shows the estimated Oct 29-31 for the event. Just giving you guys the info.
Mentions gale force winds for SW and also underlines “unusual development” (is this a blind squirrel finding the nut?)
It is quit interesting to see how people report about not having seen the storm while no people report here who got hit by gusts of up to 120 mph. And then the conclusion is that it was just one storm of many – which it was not at all – DEPENDENT on the region. It were the highest ever measured wind speeds in a region with the longest existing station observations on Earth. But it was not the UK, it was N-Germany and Denmark. It is quite stupid to have a collection of some people looking out their window and concluding that everything is fine.
I think it is rather worthy to discuss why the UK media is so hysteric about a still normal storm and Denmark and N-Germany is relaxed about the highest ever observed wind speeds. Any ideas?
It was indeed a bit draughty in Bolton, but we get a fair amount of wing here in North Western England, we are used to it.
I think the met office were right to warn us as much as they did. The storm wasn’t as big as some of those that have struck Scotland over many years but the South is so much more densely populated. Five people lost their lives, two of those possibly preventable if they had heeded the warnings (swimming in the sea and sleeping in a caravan under a tree is something their loved ones will be rueing for the rest of their lives). RIP all those people and condolences to their families. How many more would have lost their lives if there was no warning? As for Piers Corbyn – with all due respect, having purchased several of his forecasts, I honestly don’t see how he can claim his accuracy to be what it is and his on going sales nonsense is annoying.
I’ve watched Corbyn’s accuracy for a number of years, such as to the extent I plan the summer round it.
for the last 6 years he’s been exactly correct on the British summers 6/6 times, whereas the Met office managed a staggering 0/6, claiming BBQ weather whereas Corbyn predicted each time the summer would be a washout.
Corbyn’s forecast can be known to be out by a margin of days-weeks on occasions, but he is essentially right in stating a crane should NOT have been left in the position it was over the cabinet office in London.
If he were given more credence it wouldn’t happen.
He actually forecast some very unusual extreme events with uncanny accuracy such as the extreme cold in the UK (down to -17C) 2010, the extreme heatwave in Russia (to +40C) and this time was perfectly correct as to the strengthening of this weather system.
The British have a unique talent to be glib and cynical when something on the island affects them less than disaster scale (witness the British hysteria with 1 flake of snow!).
The fact is the storm system caused very substantial damage in Netherlands and Denmark, and was expected to do the same in Finland except it tracked further south and hit Estonia where currently a large number of people are without power.
I for one will continue to believe that the sun is going into a period of inactivity causing quite violent changes in the orientation of the jet stream and this means the UK will essentially run out of power generating capacity by 2017.
There is a major case of negligence to be shown here.
If you recall, (people have short memories), during the 2010 cold spell the UK came within a week of running out of gas.