Monday's storm - into Europe.

[Rustynailer]

I think what gave this system its destructive edge in the southeast was that most trees are still in full leaf and fallen

trees were a major issue and caused terrible tragedy.

 

Meteorologic-ally the storm was not that severe. Recorded winds were not exceptional for an Autumn/Winter storm. If it occurred in December the outcome would have been much less damage.

 

The system rapidly intensified over southeast England just in time to cause some damage, and really intensified rapidly over the North sea, more than for example, the GFS had indicated. The winds experienced in Denmark/Holland were certainly not forecast adequately by this model.

 

Overall the UKM did well in forecasting the depression, it had the potential to be very destructive but the storm tracked further south and did not affect as many people as originally thought. I think this was clear upto 24 hours before the event and the forecasts should have been updated to reflect this, but they were not.

 

So i'd give the UKM 7/10. However the media were disgraceful, their coverage was absurd and it just shows the power of the media.

 

A similar storm could hit next week, cause the same damage and be the 5th news story of the day.

More or less the leaves... and the fact that people used to pollard* trees near houses so they did not get stupidly big and dangerous.

* Old English

[Buckster]

finally got power back here in Chelmsford - 15 hours after loosing it

[Roger J Smith]

That was nasty enough, but the fact that +3/+4 C SST anomalies now surround western Europe probably means that this won't be the last significant windstorm of the late autumn and early winter. I would say the odds of a stronger storm than this hitting southern England are at least 50-50 and perhaps a bit higher. This could have been even worse for southeast England, I suspect that the Daniel Defoe storm of 1703 followed a similar track and timing but of course was 10-20 mbs deeper at each stage. The fact that it hit at lowest astronomical tides was also helpful in mitigating the coastal damage.

[knocker]

From the beginning.

 

[Coast]

Storm lashes northern Europe leaving at least 13 dead

 

A storm battering north-western Europe has killed at least 13 people - six of them in Germany. Two people died when their car was crushed by a falling tree in Gelsenkirchen, in western Germany. Two children in the car were injured. In Brittany, western France, a woman was swept out to sea. And in the Dutch city of Amsterdam a tree felled by the wind crushed a woman by a canal. Record gusts of 191 km/h (119mph) were measured over the North Sea. Many trains were cancelled in and around London and in north-western Germany.

 

At least 50 flights were cancelled at Schiphol airport in the Netherlands, and the German media reported severe delays at airports in Hamburg and Dusseldorf. In Germany, a fisherman and a sailor were killed in separate accidents at sea. Including the Gelsenkirchen incident, four people were killed in north-western Germany when trees fell onto cars, DPA reported. Power cuts hit 42,000 homes in northern France, and at Belle-Ile in Brittany a woman was swept into the sea from a cliff. The storm whipped across Brittany and Normandy early on Monday, felling trees and knocking out power lines in some places. In the UK as many as 600,000 homes suffered power cuts, though many were later reconnected.

 

A woman was crushed to death in Amsterdam

 

On another Amsterdam canal a tree crashed onto a houseboat, sinking it

 

Dutch resort of Scheveningen: In many places police advised people to stay indoors

 

Hove, UK: There was damage across southern England from toppled trees

 

The storm put several power lines out of action in northern France

 

Two people died in west London after a felled tree caused a suspected gas explosion and house collapse

 

Port of Boulogne, France: Channel ferry crossings were disrupted early on Monday

 

In Kent in southeast England, a 17-year-old girl was crushed when a tree fell on the caravans her family was living in while renovation work was taking place at their home. A man and a woman died when they were trapped under rubble after an uprooted tree caused a gas explosion in Hounslow in west London.

 

Scandinavian warnings

 

Earlier, two P&O ferries that had been held in the English Channel because of the storm made it to port. The storm system deepened as it crossed the North Sea, according to the BBC Weather Centre. German meteorologists measured record wind speeds of 191 km/h (119mph) over the North Sea. In Brussels, a big banner on the European Commission building - the Berlaymont - was shredded by the wind. German authorities halted all local trains in Schleswig-Holstein, as well as the Hanover-Bremen service and north-bound trains from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Along Germany's North Sea coast many ferries were confined to port and shipping on the Elbe was also disrupted, ARD reported. Emergency services in Denmark and Sweden have issued storm warnings, as Scandinavia faces winds gusting at about 162km/h (100mph).

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24705734

[Sainsbo]

A gust of 120.8mph was recorded in Denmark yesterday afternoon, which was the strongest gust recorded in the country's history. Gusts of up to 94mph in the Netherlands were the strongest winds since the Burns Day Storm of 1990.

 

Seems like we were pretty lucky. If it had started intensifying earlier than predicted that could very well have been us.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Sainsbo

[Coast]

[Summer Sun]

Over 57,000 homes are still without power after a storm battered Britain.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24723028

[Coast]

Big storms compared: 1987 and 2013

 

The storm that battered parts of the UK on Sunday night and the early hours of Monday was one of the most powerful to hit Britain in recent years, with a maximum gust of nearly 100mph recorded in the Isle of Wight.

Four people were killed and about 600,000 suffered power cuts as the storm tore its way across the country. But how did it compare with the infamous Great Storm of 16 October 1987?

 

 

The 2013 storm developed to the south west of the UK on Sunday before tracking into the Bristol Channel in the early hours of Monday 28 October. Driven by a powerful jet stream, the storm passed across the Midlands and into the North Sea as the morning progressed. The 1987 storm began as a small disturbance along a cold front in the Bay of Biscay, just north of Spain, which quickly deepened into an area of very low pressure. As in 2013, a particularly strong jet stream contributed towards its rapid progression.

 

 

The 1987 storm remains easily the most severe the UK has suffered in recent decades. The last storm of a similar magnitude occurred in 1703, and wind speeds in locations such as Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, were the highest ever recorded. The loss of trees and woodland in southern England was particularly acute, with an estimated 15 million trees destroyed.

 

There were some positives, however, as the storm cleared many old and decaying trees. A massive tree-planting programme was begun to replace the lost woodland, with the destruction of managed coniferous forest allowing some areas to be replanted with traditional native species. In another unforeseen consequence, a number of wild boar also escaped captivity during the storm and went on to successfully breed in the wild, helping to re-introduce the species to the UK after a gap of 400 years.

 

 

Some 15 million trees were uprooted in the 1987 storm; far fewer fell this year, but some caused disruption.

Famous forecast BBC weatherman Michael Fish famously failed to predict the severity of the 1987 storm, but other factors, including the lack of a weather ship in the Bay of Biscay, were identified by risk analysts Risk Management Solutions as contributing to the UK being caught by surprise. In contrast, the BBC's Nick Miller on 25 October warned this year's storm would "pack quite a punch

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24708614

[Coast]

 

St Jude’s Day Storm chaos continues as travel and power networks struggle to recover

 

Storm continues to claim lives as it makes its way across the rest of Europe

 

 

The efforts of forecasters in predicting the extent of the chaos were hailed today for preventing a greater loss of life in the UK.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/st-judes-day-storm-chaos-continues-as-travel-and-power-networks-struggle-to-recover-8910450.html

 

 

[4wd]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPQMOblNlgo

[Coast]

[Coast]

Liam Dutton's blog on the storm:

 

 

UK storm: the facts

 

As predicted, southern and eastern parts of England woke up to damaging gusts of wind from a storm that has killed four people so far and caused widespread disruption. The storm moved along a line from the Bristol Channel, through the Midlands and the Wash before heading out over the North Sea, leaving a trail of damage in its wake – as well as some localised flooding from heavy rain. It formed to the west of the UK before developing rapidly overnight and was catapulted across southern areas by a fast moving jet stream. In advance of the storm, the Met Office issued an amber ‘be prepared’ warning, highlighting that damage and disruption was likely.

 

Strongest wind gusts

 

Southern and eastern parts of England had the most damaging gusts of wind, with the following gusts recorded;

 

Needles, Isle of Wight – 99mph

 

Langdon Bay, Kent – 82mph

 

Isle of Portland – 81mph

 

Andrewsfield, Essex – 79mph

 

Odiham, Hampshire – 78mph

 

Thorney Island, Hampshire – 76mph

 

Solent, Hampshire – 75mph

 

Yeovilton, Somerset – 75mph

 

Lyneham, Wiltshire – 75mph

 

Hurn, Dorset – 74mph

 

Manston, Kent – 70mph

 

Heathrow Airport – 69mph

 

Two swathes of damaging wind

 

As the storm developed, there were two swathes of strong wind that hit southern and eastern parts of England. The first swathe was ahead of the storm in the early hours of Monday morning, sweeping in from the south west and battering southern coastal counties of England. The second swathe was on the back edge of the storm as it cleared away, lashing East Anglia and south east England during the morning rush hour. It was this second swathe of damaging wind that was likely to have been caused by something called a sting jet.

 

What is a sting jet?

 

A sting jet is an intense, concentrated burst of enhanced wind gusts that occur around the tip of storms like the one that hit today. They are caused by rain evaporating into dry air a few miles up in the sky. As the process of evaporation uses up latent heat, it causes the air to cool rapidly. It’s this rapidly cooling air that becomes denser than the relatively warmer air around it and as a result, slams down towards the surface – enhancing the strength of the wind in the process. A sting jet occurred in the Great Storm of 1987, which of course was much worse than the storm that we experienced today.

 

How does this storm compare to others in the past?

 

In recent days, there have been comparisons made to the Great Storm of October 1987, which had devastating effects on southern parts of England. That storm gave winds gusts of 115mph, killed more than 15 people and downed an estimated 15 million trees. The storm that hit today, when looking at wind speeds and impact combined, is probably the worst that the UK has seen since October 2002. Whilst there’ll be a brief respite with quieter weather in the coming days, low pressure will bring more rain and brisk winds later this week – although not as strong as today’s.

 

 

http://blogs.channel4.com/liam-dutton-on-weather/uk-storm-facts/5204#sthash.FB3ZCY6w.dpuf

[Su Campu]

This is staggering! The 1500Z synop report from Kegnaes, Denmark (16 m) yesterday. Maximum sustained winds reported as 75 knots, with a gust of 104 knots (120 mph/194 kmph!).

 

AAXX 28154 06119 27558 52459 10120 20087 39793 49815 52008 71086 333 60067 81/22 83/39 85/50 91071 91199 00104 91275= 

52459 - 5 okta cloud cover. Current sustained wind 240 degrees at 59 knots.

 

From the 333 line:

 

91071 - Gust of 71 knots in the 10-minute period preceding the report

91199 00104 - Maximum gust in the preceding hour 104 knots (the 00104 group is required because the 91199 gust group is off the scale!)

91275 - Maximum sustained wind in the preceding hour 75 knots

 

 

Edited October 29, 2013 by Su Campu

[Guest William Grimsley]

Interesting, when I was driving down the M5 through Somerset and Devon, I saw no trees uprooted at all. Only a few limbs down in the fields that surround the M5.

[Su Campu]

Animated sat movement of storm and subsequent wind reports across Europe.http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/METEOSATSTINGobs2013_loop_28Oct2013.gif

The dry stratospheric air in that animation confirms the sting jet just as it approached Denmark.

[Polarlow]

Another video from Sylt Germany,  Looks powerful to me !!!

 

 

 

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ba5_1383164405

[stainesbloke]

Another video from Sylt Germany, Looks powerful to me !!!http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ba5_1383164405

Wow, scary stuff! Imagine if the storm had arrived 10 hours or so later here...utter chaos and loads of damage. We got away lightly compared to the continent, apart from the poor people that died.