From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
Sometimes I am lost for words!
For years the Met Office has acknowledged that no UK storm in recent years has gone close to the severity of a string of storms in the 1980s and 90s.
For instance, this from their State of the UK Climate Report 2023:
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/joc.8553
But according to their new State of Climate Report, the Great Storm of 1987 was nothing compared to Storm Eowyn in January 2025:
And here is the evidence, you disbelieving plebs!
The 1987 storm only SEEMED bad, because the trees were in leaf!
This dishonesty goes well beyond mere gaslighting. To suggest Eowyn was worse is an outright lie.
Part of the explanation for fewer station counts in 1987 is that the storm really only hit the south east at full intensity, whereas Eowyn cut a swathe from N Ireland to eastern Scotland.
But the real reason is that Eowyn passed over mainly upland landscapes and rocky coasts, all of course highly exposed where wind speeds are naturally much higher.
Look at the map for Eowyn:
Eowyn ran straight across the hills of N Ireland, the exposed coasts of Western Scotland, then passed over Lanarkshire Hills and for good measure exited over high clifftops on the North Sea coast. Just about all of those 70 knots+ occurred in highly exposed locations.
Top wind speed was 100 mph on top of a 900ft hill at Drumalbin. followed six other hopelessly exposed sites; Brizelee, for instance, is 800ft high, Aberdaron is at the top of a high cliff at the tip of the Lleyn Peninsula and so on:
In contrast, gusts of over 90 knots were recorded at several other coastal locations. Shoreham is officially the highest at 98 knots, though Stephen Burt’s analysis found much stronger winds at Gorleston:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260891819_The_Great_Storm_of_15-16_October_1987
Even well inland at low altitude sites, gusts exceeded 80 knots. The London Weather Centre recorded 82 knots at 2.50 am, and 86 knots, (99 mph), was recorded at Gatwick Airport at 4.30 am.
To compare mountain and clifftop sites with lowland ones, where people actually live, and in this case sadly died, is not scientific and it most certainly is not worthy of any scientific organisation.
To put things into perspective, Eowyn brought gusts of only 58 knots in Eskdalemuir, which lay in the centre of the storm track but is a much less exposed location.
Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?
Well, just take another look at their chart:
Why on earth would they want to highlight the 1987 storm, if it was not to make people think Eowyn was much worse?
I landed in the UK for the first time on the day of The Great Storm of 1987.
The mind boggles…as David Frost would say…
That explains it 🤣
A further thought…1990 was also memorable…being about ten yards from a roof lifting off…and landing on three cars…just natural variation…
That storm track, indicated by Homewood’s red arrow, does not run “… straight across the hills of N Ireland…”.
The hilly regions in N Ireland are the Mournes (south-east of the storm track) and the Sperrins (North-west of the storm track).
The storm track, as the red arrow, runs close to or straight over several cities, including Armagh, Lisburn and Belfast, which is the most populated city in N Ireland.
Just letting you know, because I know none of you will bother to check for yourselves.
I have just checked, and Northern Ireland looks pretty hilly to me. Since the storm is not a point but a wide area, the hills you cited would have been swept.
You must be pretty desperate if this is all you have.
I’m not sure what this piece is trying to say. From a strictly meteorological perspective the 1987 storm wasn’t the worst in terms of wind speed as the graph shows, however from a damage and economic perspective it’s the worst storm in recent history.
My understanding is that most storms that affect the British isles originate in the Atlantic Ocean to the south west or west of us, whereas the 1987 storm although originally started in the Atlantic it was to the south of the British Isles possibly around the Bay of Biscay and tracked northward hitting the south east of England, our most densely populated region. The trees were still in leaf which made them more vulnerable.
It’s no different to a geological survey pointing out that an earthquake in a country is not the worst experienced, as measured geologically magnitude, in recorded history but was the most deadly due to damage caused and injuries sustained.
I have the same feeling. The Met Office gives us plenty of reasons to want to put the boot in, but this particular report seems kinda unexceptionable.
The point is that storms are complicated things (much like weather in general) and that trying to use one or two simple metrics to try and compare storms is futile.
Hence the point about one storm where the trees were in leaf (which will slow surface winds) vs another storm that mostly tracked mostly across rocky landscapes with few trees.
Another point not made is that many of the highest wind speeds were made on top of high points in the landscape. Forcing air up and over obstructions causes the wind speed to increase. So comparing wind speed in the highlands vs wind speeds in flatter regions has to be done with care.
The wider point is that when trying to compare climate over time, you have to account for all variables, not just the one or two that fit the narrative you are trying to sell.
I live directly under the Eowyn Red line. Burns night 1990 resulted in losing 2 chimney pots and 15 slates and a very wakeful night wondering if the roof was going to stay on, next day multiple trees down blocking local roads. For Eowyn some thin zinc ridging went missing, undisturbed sleep and only a couple of trees were down. I was in Oxford for the 1987 storm and that was similar to the Burns night one and worse further South. Had been to Kew gardens in 86 and went back in 88 and it was unrecognisable in places. Anecdotal sample of one so not scientific but them neither is the MET Office anymore.
Other ways to compare storms for those of us who do not obsess with windspeeds, is to assess the loss of life is to consider loss of lives, cost of damage to buildings and crops and number of trees destroyed.
For a swathe of the South East of England the loss of trees, including many centuries old, the Great Storm of 1987 is still unrivalled.
As noted by kommando828 Kew Gardens lost about 700 trees, while Richmond Park lost more than 4,500. A number of street trees were also felled. Next morning I counted five mature trees which had been blocking main roads in my 2 mile walk to the office.
I also noted that two of our neighbours had been blocked in their house by a large tree that had fallen in their garden so close to their front door that they could not get out. Later they told us that in order to exit their property they had to go through their back garden, climb over an 8 foot fence and walk though their neighbour’s house for several days until an emergency team was free to cut and remove the tree.
25 miles away in Leigh, my brother-in-law and a neighbour spent more than a day sawing and removing seven of the large trees that had fallen from his property blocking one of the main roads into the village. Their electricity and telephone lines were cut and not restored for more than a week.
I don’t know, the Witch King of Angmar thought Eowyn was a pretty bad storm……..
The Great Storm and other momentous weather happenings.
“Why on earth would they want to highlight the 1987 storm, if it was not to make people think Eowyn was much worse?”
Because it was a notable storm, that many/most people who were adults at the time would remember, if only for Mike Fish’s comments about a “hurricane”
It’s called effective communication – make it relateable.
And not what is constantly in the mind of Mr Homewood – the ongoing promulgation of a conspiracy.
“The 1987 storm only SEEMED bad, because the trees were in leaf!”
No, the impacts were worsened because trees were in full leaf (of which there are many in SE Engand whilst at the same time it is the most densely populated area of the UK.
“A tree in full leaf feels 2 to 3 times more drag force than a bare tree. Foliage acts like a massive sail, significantly increasing the crown’s surface area. A fully-leafed deciduous tree in strong winds might experience hundreds of pounds of lateral force.”
BTW: The actual track of the cyclone’s centre was further north than Homewood has it.
The clue is that the strongest winds are always to the right of the srorm track:
This is the “Great Strom” of Oct 1987:
Both events had a similar pressure gradient ~ 20mb over 2deg of latitude, however Eowyn impacted a larger area with surface winds due that gradient.
Both storms also had a “Sting Jet” withing the circulation
https://www.severe-weather.eu/learnweather/severe-weather-theory/what-is-a-sting-jet-mk/
Much ado about nothing
Where does CO2 fit in this tale of weather woe?
It doesn’t – that we can know anyway.
It’s just Homewood trying desperately to make it look like the MetO is pushing the AGW narrative of weather getting worse.
There will always be winter Atlantic storms coming into the UK, the strength of which depends on the deltaT across the PJF (hence jet strength) + entrained warm advection and the vorticity component.
You don’t have to push the view that the Met is pushing climate alarmism at the expense of accurate reporting.
The data alone is sufficient to show that.
Your opinion that it is pushed.
But the data is real.
That you deny that, is of course, taken for granted.
This place has to after all.
Here on Southcoast of England , I slept right through the storm, no damage to my Victorian semi , but as the wife and I drove into the centre of the city we saw lots of damage tiles of rooves , mature trees blown down , lots of roads blocked by fallen trees . In Jan February 1989 we had two violent storms as well . I was working in a small office at the time and the windows of it were visibly moving , we could hear roof tiles coming of and smashing , high sided vans were blown over and whilst I was out driving i saw a huge monkey puzzle tree blow over .
The UK really needs to up grade its building code. We do not live in 1860 anymore. Where I live the building code requires 110 MPH roof and wall proof construction which is very easy to do. The winds the UK claims are serious are nothing. Incidentally I am 2500 miles from the nearest tornado and hurricane area.
By convention, tropical storms and hurricanes are named alphabetically. Naming every other storm system on the planet such as Eowyn or winter storm Uri is baloney.
Any debate out this depends on how you define the word ‘worse’?
Worse for whom? Worse for what infrastructure? Worse for which farmers?
I was living in Glasgow at the time of the ‘great storm of 1987’ and all we had was a pretty strong wind totally unremarkable to Western Scotland. On the other hand, literally millions of mature trees were lost in the SE of England which represented far, far more ecological damage to the green luvvies than anything that has occurred since.
The only time I seriously wondered about my personal safety was a storm in the 1990s when I owned a top floor apartment in a Georgian townhouse in Oxford. Whilst lying in bed, I could feel the whole building rocking as the hurricane blew outside. It was the only time in my life when I wondered whether I should leave my home at night and sleep in the car. I wondered how safe that would be if any chimneys might collapse or slates might fly off. I stayed in my bed and am still here to tell the tale….
Scientists can debate things until the cows come home, but what the majority of citizens think is most important is their personal safety, the safety of their homes and possessions and the risks to their ways of life.