Atlantic Storms 2013

[rossco89]

Must say those are some tight isobars to the west!

[Liam J]

Recent wind gust to 81mph on South Uist and 72mph at Stornoway - http://www.xcweather.co.uk/

Stunning satellite image showing the wrap around occlusion, a real battering coming for the far north west and later the Northern Isles.

Edited January 29, 2013 by Liam J

[be cause]

just found the thread .. glad it and you all are here .. mobile weather has a special excitement .. especially when living in an old mobile home !!! Friday does look a bit 'what hurricane ?' . or Fastnet Race .. when I couldn't understand the lack of advanced concern Anyway be safe tonight in and off Scotland

[Zenarcher]

Gusting to 80mph here and powers just gone off.

[Bobby]

Been pouring down here all day, ~50mm past 24 hours

Edited January 29, 2013 by Bobby

[Coast]

Skywarn forecast out covering today:

SKYWARN UK SEVERE WEATHER WARNING #008

ISSUED: 1530UTC TUESDAY 29TH JANUARY 2013 (GS/GJ)

SKYWARN UK HAS ISSUED A SEVERE WEATHER WARNING FOR THE FOLLOWING REGIONS:

WESTERN SCOTLAND NORTHERN SCOTLAND ORKNEY & SHETLAND

IN EFFECT UNTIL 2100UTC WEDNESDAY 30TH JANUARY 2013

VERY DEEP LOW CROSSING TO THE NORTH, GENERATING SEVERE GALES WITH DAMAGING GUSTS

SEVERE WEATHER IS EXPECTED IMMINENTLY, OR OCCURRING, SOMEWHERE WITHIN THE REGIONS INDICATED. THREATS WITHIN THIS WARNING INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO:

GALES...SEVERE GALES...STRONG GUSTS...DAMAGING GUSTS

DISCUSSION:

THERE IS HIGH CONFIDENCE IN THE OCCURRENCE OF SEVERE WEATHER IN THE REGIONS SPECIFIED. A RAPIDLY DEEPENED LOW SYSTEM WILL CROSS CLOSE TO THE NORTHWEST CORNER OF SCOTLAND BEFORE MOVING EASTWARD. A VERY STRONG JET AND DEEP VERTICAL WINDFIELD, COMBINED WITH THE DEEPEST PHASE OF THE LOW, WILL ALLOW 90MPH WINDS TO BE TRANSPORTED DOWNWARD TO THE SURFACE WITHIN A TIGHT PRESSURE GRADIENT. MEAN WINDS OF AROUND 55MPH ARE EXPECTED, WITH GUSTS POSSIBLY EXCEEDING 80MPH, THROUGH THE PERIOD. THIS WARNING MAY BE UPGRADED IF THE TRACK OF THE LOW IS ANY FURTHER SOUTH. NEIGHBOURING AREAS MAY SEE LEE GUSTS EXCEED 70MPH. PLEASE MONITOR WEATHER AND TRAVEL INFO AS NECESSARY.

[Coast]

First NMM now showing the start of Friday early on, with a hint it may also be further South over France, but the direction of flow may mean it still wallops the South coast?

[Nick F]

I see winds in the early hours gusted to 84 mph in Lerwick, 86mph at Fair Isles and a breezy 129mph at the top Bealach Na Ba in the west Scottish Highlands.

ECM, UKMO GM and fax not making much now of Friday's low across the south, GFS still a low with a tight circulation (down to 984mb).

[Shadow]

I see winds in the early hours gusted to 84 mph in Lerwick, 86mph at Fair Isles and a breezy 129mph at the top Bealach Na Ba in the west Scottish Highlands.

ECM, UKMO GM and fax not making much now of Friday's low across the south, GFS still a low with a tight circulation (down to 984mb).

Where can you see the wind speeds as the Bealach is just up the road from Lochcarron where I live.

[Liam J]

Very strong winds associated with the trough pushing across Ireland, Mace Head reporting 49mph gust 74mph. These strong winds moving into the Irish Sea to affect N Wales & N England for a time, could be quite active with scattered hail & thunder and gusts towards 60mph.

[Nick F]

Where can you see the wind speeds as the Bealach is just up the road from Lochcarron where I live.

I only saw the observation on the BBC forecast this morning, unfortunately I cannot find a link where you can see the particular wind gust in question though this site appears to have sustained wind speeds for the site, peak sustained of 78.3 mph at 23:50 last night:

http://www.weatherhq...alach-na-ba-no2

Bealach Na Ba No 2 (mountain station) one of the many automatic stations the MetO use:

http://www.metoffice...images/map3.gif

Edited January 30, 2013 by Nick F

[Shadow]

Thanks for the info Nick.

[Chris W]

Getting pretty breezy around Warrington, expecting gusts of up to 60mph this afternoon. I see the low last night bottomed out around 955mb, not as low as the 928 the other day but right over Scotland rather than Iceland.

[chiffer]

Really breezy here not to far from Warrington, only a few small clouds in the sky, when is the rain due to hit?

[Richie V]

Roughing up good here in Barnsley, just had a 51.9 mph gust.

[Zenarcher]

Confirmed top gusts on Tuesday and early Wednesday

South Uist 84mph.

Lerwick 84mph.

Kirkwall 82mph.

Loch Glacarnoch 79mph.

Stornoway 78mph.

Tiree 77mph.

Isle of Skye 74mph.

[nodrog]

Blackpool Weather have changed the warning. It's much calmer here now.

[Liam J]

Exeter going for gusts of 70mph in exposed places but more generally 50-60mph, could be quite interesting during the early hours especially if that short lived but intense squall line develops as modelled.

[Aaron]

Loving this turbulent period of weather - certainly makes up for the lack of snow, very little beats going outside onto an open field with the gale force winds buffeting you (or am I just a nutter?!).

LBA peaked at 63mph yesterday.

Edited January 31, 2013 by Aaron

[Coast]

ESTOFEX forecast just offshore, but worth noting for the dialogue:

Storm Forecast

Valid: Thu 31 Jan 2013 06:00 to Fri 01 Feb 2013 06:00 UTC

Issued: Wed 30 Jan 2013 23:25

Forecaster: PISTOTNIK

A level 1 was issued for the Netherlands, Belgium and parts of Germany for severe wind gusts.

SYNOPSIS

To the South of an almost endless chain of deep cyclones from the Northern Atlantic via the British Isles into Scandinavia, a pronounced zonal flow continues over much of Europe. An occlusion which rapidly moves eastward across North-Central Europe provides a possible focus for a strongly forced convection event.

Meanwhile, a subtropical ridge extends into most of the Mediterranean region and presents it with calm and dry weather.

DISCUSSION

...North-Central Europe...

The occluded frontal system of a mature low over Scotland gets reinforced in the left exit region of a jet streak (60 m/s at 500 hPa) as it moves from the English East coast via Germany into Poland in the 06 to 18 UTC time frame. The accompanying signal in the surface fields seems subtle, as it is dwarfed by the overall strong pressure gradient. However, the combination of a strong background wind field and slightly backed surface winds is sufficient to drive the 0-3 km storm-relative helicity into the 200-300 m^2/s^2 range, overlapped by synoptic lift support and neutral to marginally unstable profiles in the lower troposphere.

The lack of a pronounced frontal structure and the slantwise orientation of the vorticity lobe to the mid-level flow suggest that a convective line (if any) will soon give way to a small flock of shallow multicells as the dominant convective mode. Showers and isolated thunderstorms are expected to make landfall in Belgium and the Netherlands around 10 UTC and to move into Northwestern Germany in the following hours, and they might attain briefly rotating updrafts in this helical environment. Sub-severe soft hail is locally possible and even an isolated tornado is not ruled out. However, all in all this threat is limited by a lack of low-level buoyancy and by a displacement of the deepest instability (further North) from the strongest vertical wind shear (further South). The only uniformity in this highly dynamic setup is the strong low-level wind field (30-35 m/s at 850 hPa), which makes the severe wind threat solid enough to issue a level 1 area, even though the majority of convection will be too shallow for electrification.

The favourable overlap of strong vertical wind shear, lift support and marginal instability is quite limited in space and time, hence the wind risk will taper off in Central Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic in the late afternoon and evening hours. A further involvement of convection becomes doubtful, too.

[Coast]

Today's ESTOFEX forecast:

Storm Forecast

Valid: Fri 01 Feb 2013 06:00 to Sat 02 Feb 2013 06:00 UTC

Issued: Thu 31 Jan 2013 22:17

Forecaster: TUSCHY

...SYNOPSIS and DISCUSSION ...

The polar vortex remains somewhat disturbed with roughly 20 K temperature anomalies still present at 30 hPa. However, some gradual re-organization of the vortex is anticipated with AO ensemble members tightly clustered although this strengthening might be only on a temporal basis. However, despite those trends in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere, the European weather remains influenced by an healthy looking branch of the split polar vortex, which moves north towards the Greenland Sea. This pattern is reflected in the maps of the 500 hPa height anomalies, which show a strong negative signal south of Iceland and a NE-ward building positive anomaly over far SW Europe.

Therefore, a tight baroclinic zone remains in place over most of W/S Europe with active cyclogenesis affecting W-Europe. The main difference to the past 2 days will be a significant impulse / amplifying trough, which builds south from Ireland to the Bay of Biscay. This wavy streamline pattern results in moderate to strong height falls at all levels which affect most of the W-C Mediterranean during the overnight hours.

Influx of cold and dry air precludes thunderstorm development for most places and even somewhat better LL moisture over the Mediterranean will be ineffective due to marginal mid-level lapse rates.

The main focus will be the S/SE Bay of Biscay, NW Spain and N-Portugal, where prefrontal moisture advection (ahead of a southbound cold front) yields an adequate chance for heavy rain with isolated embedded thunderstorm activity. This activity will be non-severe but enhances the overall heavy rain risk over N-Spain and SW-France. During the overnight hours, temperatures especially at mid-levels drop rapidly with deep CAA forecast and widespread 100 - 500 J/kg SBCAPE atop 10-12 °C SSTs of the Bay of Biscay develop. Thunderstorms are accompanied by strong to isolated severe wind gusts and marginal hail. The thunderstorm risk also increases over the far W-Mediterranean during the end of the forecast as CAA arrives

[Coast]

[Coast]

Well that was a complete waste!! Nothing of note here

[Zenarcher]

Met Office have a wind warning for Scotland during Monday

Gale and locally severe gale force winds will affect much of Scotland during Monday. Gusts will be particularly strong in exposed northern and western Scotland and around heavy showers which will fall as sleet and snow quite widely. Some drifting of snow and temporary blizzard conditions are likely, especially over high ground.

The public should be aware of the potential for disruption, especially to travel.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/warnings/#?tab=map&map=Warnings&zoom=6&lon=-5.09&lat=57.36&fcTime=1359720060

[Storm Track]

Fresh 'Weather Bomb' set to batter Britain

Over the weekend storms were described as a meteorological "bomb" by experts after they reached pressure levels normally seen in Category 4 Hurricanes, the The Times reports. The bad weather caused havock across the country.

According to the The Times reports at: http://www.theweek.co.uk/uk-news/weather/51222/fresh-weather-bomb-set-batter-britain