By Paul Homewood
The Met Office have now issued their comprehensive report on the St Jude’s Day storm, that hit southern England in October.
Readers will recall idiotic headlines at the time, describing it as “The Storm of the Century”, “Unprecedented”, “Superstorm” and “A repeat of 1987”. I pointed out at the time that such claims were patent nonsense, and that the storm was not an unusual event.
The Met Office report now confirms what I was saying.
The full report can be seen here.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/interesting/2013-octwind
Paul Homewood says:
“Anyone know what Piers Corbyn forecast yet?”
Roughly 1.5°C above normals for the month:
http://snag.gy/2sbrX.jpg
Observations:
http://www.centralenglandtemperature.co.uk/images/temperature/DCET%20-%20Last%203%20Months.png
http://www.skynews.com.au/eco/article.aspx?id=932569
Ahh. if only our much venerated but totally biased ABC (OZ) could show such balance. Well done Sky News.
regards
Meanwhile on this side of the pond they are naming and claiming blizzards and plain old cold events. That’s because they are all a result of the big heat, no?
Doug Proctor says: December 9, 2013 at 8:53 am
On a somewhat related note, particularly from the perspective of history of “greatest storms” … And (believe it or not) it’s from the BBC – although it was produced in 2003, i.e. pre-28Gate. As the narrator notes, this 1953 storm has been “air-brushed out of history”.
Memory can be a fickle selector at times. I was living in the U.K. in 1953, although I was quite young and residing inland (Birmingham). I remember many events from that year, including our relocation from B’ham to Llanelli (on the S.W, coast of Wales), later that year. So, as I was watching the video below, I found it hard to believe that I had absolutely no recollection of hearing anything about this tragic storm. But “communications” were very different in those days.
It’s a long watch, and a very sad and painful one. And the sound is a little rough at times (and even rougher, I suspect, to the ears of those unfamiliar with some British dialects). But, IMHO, if one wants to talk about “extreme weather” – and its impacts, in historical context – then this video is a must watch [h/t Howard Goodall via twitter].
From the ‘Tube intro:
http://youtu.be/vARjm3yHKzY
Please Mr Grumpy!
I do not believe in any of this AGM rubbish but come on — ‘Scotland and NE England usually have the harshest Winters although Kent in SE England often suffers from continental weather due to its proximity to France.’
Are you trying to say the SE has good weather because it is near Northern France?
I mean have you ever heard of the Bay of Biscay and its weather? Northern France is not the Cote d’Azure. And I seem to remember a pretty severe storm causing havoc on D-Day.
I find it ironic that they hyped the St Jude storm, and when it happened it wasn’t much at all. Then just last week, the UK was hit with a storm with higher gusts and greater tidal surges than even the storm of 1953, and yet, this came with almost no mention until after the damage.
In a garden just round from where I live, a huge tree – I mean about 4 ft diameter trunk – was blown down, falling across the footpath. Had it fallen the other way it would have taken the house down. Now that was scary.
Trev
You’ve mis-understood Paul’s comment. The influence of Continental weather on the extreme south-east tends to make summers a little warmer but winters a little colder than would be the case if Europe was further off the coast of Britain ( 😉 ).
Trev
I grew up in Essex, and it always seemed that Kent got worse snow than we did.
Maybe the Downs had something to do with it, but I think one factor is that Kent is much closer to the continent. The expanse of North Sea that continental air has to pass over to reach Essex helps to moderate temperatures slightly.
Yeah, but in the mean time they have plastered their BS all over the press.
Lots of people confusing this St Jude’s day storm with the one that led to the storm surge last week. St Jude’s day is in October. Is the fact that we now have frequently ‘unusual’ storms leading to these no longer being classed as unusual?
The provisional data for last week’s storm is here.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/12/07/provisional-data-for-the-north-sea-storm/
Essentially, the windspeeds in 1953 were far higher, though the storm surges were similar.
It is shameful that certain inappropriate unprofessional and illegal activity has been carried on WUWT – presumably not intentionally as far as WUWT is concerned I hasten to make clear.
Paul Homewood asked Dec 9 12.22pm:
“Anyone know what Piers Corbyn forecast yet?” (About Dec).
I say it is inappropriate and unprofessional to seek copyright material to be made public. This is encouraging breach of copyright and consequent theft of forecast information.
Lawrence13 Dec9, 3:16pm said he knew what we were saying about Dec but was keping confidence. Thank you for your moral fibre Lawrence.
Ulric Lyons Dec 9, 5.34pm however obliged it appears to assist breach of copyright and associated theft with the Reply:
Roughly 1.5°C above normals for the month:
http://snag.gy/2sbrX.jpg
Apart from being contemptable and illegal in intent the information he gives is false and gratuitously damaging of WeatherAction forecasts, since
1. Our December Temperature forecast is NOT what he says or even near.
2. The link he provides with mal-intent which has the title header concealed is not a graph of December 2013 but of NOVEMBER 2013 (45d version rather than 30d ahead). Close examination shows the graph ends on 30th bearing this out.
This incompetent provision of assistance of illegal activity is by the same Ulric Lyons who tricked me in early September into giving him some summary information of my WeatherAction forecasts of the winter months and who has since informed some of what ‘he reckons’ my WeatherAction winter forecast may be saying. I would like to hear from anyone who has heard such information.
May I request WUWT considers what to do about these gentlemen with or without police or lawyer involvement and think on how professional standards can be maintained on this site.
On the storm itself which we at WeatherAction announced for late October for tracking in Southern England 23 weeks ahead (See Slide 52 http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews13No43.pdf ), it is worth noting that while being obviously less severe than Oct 1987 storm in England as a whole it was more severe than the ’87 storm perhaps in Dover (unofficial records) and certainly when it reached parts of Europe Where ‘Record’ winds were observed causing extensive damage. To understand a storm fully we need to be not bound by national boundaries. The late ‘ramping-up’ is interesting.
Thank you for your attention,
Piers Corbyn, WeatherAction, long range forecasters
+447958713320