Great Storm 1987

Wolfe_IRE

ON THIS DAY: The night of Monday 15 October marks 25 years since the UK's Great Storm of 1987, in which 18 people died as winds reached speeds of 115mph. Michael Fish of The Met Office famously failed to predict the intensity and location of the storm, which took residents in the south of England by surprise.

CONTEXT - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19926031

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqs1YXfdtGE

yellowlabrador

I was living in the East end of London at the time, and it really came out of the blue. The roaring noise of the wind was something else. I felt quite alarmed at one point and turned on the radio, no radio, no tv then at about 4 am, no power. I felt quite cut off and couldn't wait for daylight. I lived in a cooperative house, where we had small individual gardens and a large communal garden and one of the last elms, a monster of 400 years came crashing down.
I remember the noise most. As soon as it was morning, and the wind had calmed abit, I went out with my children and we were right under the eye. totally wind still and a big circle of sunshine. I took the children down the road to the city farm where I volunteered and got busy.
The funny thing I remember most was my 3 year old daughter. The day before, I'd explained to her about autumn, and told her the leaves fell of the trees.
She looked around her and to the graveyard of St Dunstan's, which had been full of very large trees, and said 'Look mum, the leaves have fallen with the trees.'
The whole of london was bedlam, with no public transport and all the schools closed. Most people had to give up going to work.

Deep Easterly

I think what made this storm so 'great' was that it affected a largely populated region of the UK, but I still think that as a storm in itself, it wasn't really that great at all. Similarly powerful storms hit Scotland frequently, the NW of Ireland at least once every year.t

I watched a documentary on this storm a few months ago and while it must have been a terrifying experience for some, the programed claimed that this storm was a hurricane, and even had dramatic satellite footage showing the eye of the fully formed hurricane bearing down on SW UK along with dramatic, cinematic type music. Total nonsense it was nothing more than a deep Atlantic depression that just happened to hit the south coast of England.



As Micheal Fish rightly pointed out at the time...

Chicken1

So you would not call winds of 120 mph a hurricane, with all the damage it caused it and the wind speed what else was it, I have never heard of winds in this Country reaching 120 mph in built up areas.

Storm damage in England
The storm made landfall in Cornwall, before tracking northeast towards Devon and then over the Midlands, going out to sea via The Wash. The strongest gusts, of up to 100 knots (190 km/h; 120 mph), were recorded along the south-eastern edge of the storm, hitting mainly Sussex, Essex and Kent. The Royal Sovereign lighthouse some 6 miles off Eastbourne recorded wind speeds on their instruments pegged at 110mph offscale high, i.e. could read no higher.
The storm caused substantial damage over much of England, downing an estimated 15 million trees[4] (including six of the seven famous oak trees in Sevenoaks,[5] historic trees in Kew Gardens, Wakehurst Place, Nymans Garden, Hyde Park, London and Scotney Castle[6] and most of the trees making up Chanctonbury Ring). At Bedgebury National Pinetum almost a quarter of the trees were brought down.[7][8] Fallen trees blocked roads and railways and left widespread structural damage to buildings. Several hundred thousand people were left without power, which was not fully restored until more than two weeks later. Local electric utility officials later said they lost more wires in that one storm than in the entire preceding decade. At sea, as well as many small boats being wrecked, a ship capsized at Dover and a Sealink cross-channel ferry, the MV Hengist, was driven ashore at Folkestone.
The National Grid sustained heavy damage during the event, as crashing cables began to short circuit and overheat the main system. Faced with the choice of keeping the Grid completely online to help London as the storm approached, but risk an entire system breakdown, failure and burnout, or to shut down the South East areas and prevent further damage, but leave London powerless, National Grid Headquarters made the monumental decision and the first one like it in memory: shut down the South East power systems to maintain the network and stop the overheating.
In London, many of the plane trees lining the streets were blown down overnight, blocking roads and crushing parked cars. Building construction scaffolding and billboards had collapsed in many places, and many buildings had been damaged. The following morning, the BBC Lime Grove Centre in White City was unable to function due to a power failure, and both ITV's TV-am and BBC1's Breakfast Time programmes were broadcast from emergency facilities, reinforcing an impression of national emergency. Much of the public transport in the capital was not functioning, and people were advised against trying to go to work.

Deep Easterly

Chicken1 wrote: »

So you would not call winds of 120 mph a hurricane, with all the damage it caused it and the wind speed what else was it, I have never heard of winds in this Country reaching 120 mph in built up areas.

Hurricane force, yes, and equally as damaging but the storm system itself could not be classed as a true hurricane (as was being portrayed in that particular documentary)

However I take your point on the strength of the wind gusts along the SE coast of England.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7044050.stm

Sponge Bob

Slept through the whole thing, went out to work the next morning to privatise BP...walked around the corner and went jeezfcknchrist what happened here???

I was the only one who made it into my particular office that day.

mike65

Poor old Michael Fish, defined by 30 seconds.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2012/oct/15/forecasters-great-storm-1987-gales

I don't recall it being more than a blowy night here in Waterford.

Iancar29

Hear the account from the man himself...

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=1987-great-storm;sess=

Harps

Not a particularly exceptional storm for wind speeds but the fact it hit the most populated corner of these islands while most trees would still have had some leaves made it a lot worse than if it hit the NW in mid Winter. My parents lived in London at the time and I remember them telling me that nearly every tree on their street was blown over, most cars were crushed, roofs blown off houses etc. Must have been a surreal scene to wake up to

Just reading the facts on the storm though, it technically didn't even reach hurricane force on land so Mr. Fish was right however you look at it :pac:

The highest hourly-mean speed recorded in the UK was 75 knots, at the Royal Sovereign Lighthouse. Winds reached Force 11 (56-63 knots) in many coastal regions of south-east England. Inland, however, their strength was considerably less. At the London Weather Centre, for example, the mean wind speed did not exceed 44 knots (Force 9). At Gatwick Airport, it never exceeded 34 knots (Force 8).

Su Campu

Michael Fish was totally correct in what he said about the hurricane, i.e. that there was none heading towards the UK (he was referring to a hurricane near Florida that had been reported on the news just before his slot). The UKMO model had shifted the storm southward, AWAY from the UK, in the most recent runs, so it is understandable that they felt that the threat had passed. Remember the wealth of observational data we have today was not available back then.

101sean

I was living in North Kent at the time and slept though it despite the garden fence being demolished. I was a highway engineer with Medway Council and spent much of the following day with the Royal Engineers cutting a way through to the Isle of Grain. The roof of Grain fire station had been deposited upside down intact in the adjacent field.

Assassin saphir

I remember it because it was my 6th birthday and my party got cancelled:mad:

We were living in Surrey and I slept through the whole thing unlike my poor mum.

Went outside in the morning and it was like a warzone. We thought it was great being kids, toppled trees to play on, fences into neighbours gardens gone and the fronts blown off the mock tudor houses in the street behind us. We could see straight into their living rooms, bedrooms and attics.

Rikand

Iancar29 wrote: »

Hear the account from the man himself...

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=1987-great-storm;sess=

very enjoyable and educational - thank you

up for anything

Can't believe it's been 25 years since and I'm old enough to have been an adult when it happened.

I spent that night in the Selsdon Park Hotel in Croydon (the older haunted wing according to the girl who showed me to my room). Woke up in the middle of the night in the dark (always sleep with the light on) and the bed shaking like mad. I was certain sure that it was ghostly happenings. I was out of that bed like a greyhound and groping around to find the complimentary match books on the dressing table to get some light from them. Couldn't get the reception desk on the phone so phoned my dad who was staying in my flat in London - couldn't understand why he was effing and blinding about barking his shin (I didn't realise that he was in the dark too). Gave him the hotel phone number and he got through and they brought me up an old fashioned storm lantern which they delivered with a snigger for the guest who was scared of the dark. I only found out the next morning at breakfast what had happened.