Severe Wind Storm late 26th-27th December

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Every single storm in the history of storms is over hyped.

Everything is over hyped.

Why is this even being discussed?

Oscar Bravo

Noting major at all to report from Castlebar overnight,no damage,thankfully. the storm we had the Wednesday before last was the worst one in a while.

Red Pepper

El Horseboxo wrote: »

Been in Doolin since yesterday morning. From the US though. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it was just a little bit of wind. It was very breezy at times. But red alerts and seek shelter just seems way over the top for what I experienced last night. And I wasn't talking about tornadic events. Derechos or just violent storms.

Last night was obviously more powerful than the average front crossing Ireland. But because it was expected to be more powerful I believe it was sensationalized. Especially on here. Your national weather service seemed more level headed. There's a light wooden table out the backyard here. It's still in the same position. And I'm near the coast. In a seek shelter event I would not expect to locate it. Never mind just finding it blown over.

Doolin eh? Doolin is always fantastic during a storm. The cliff walk would be class this morning.

chilipepper

Didnt find it too bad here in east clare, it was an average storm for me.

Hooter23

Think it will just be average/normal wet&windy until the new year then more storms or colder probably both thats my forecast anyway:p

loubian

It's lashing in North Dublin now!

riggerman

This is my back garden this morning.


storm damage 2.jpg

storm damage 3.jpg

storm damage 4.jpg

savj2

Lots of flights delayed as a result of the storm.My flight was supposed to leave at 16:10 but now delayed until 18:30

acassells80

Gone very Dark in Dublin 1 . Think thunderstorms must be on the way!

Popoutman

I went for a short drive across Limerick City, and there was damage. Two trees down between Ivans and LIT; the painted hoarding at St. Mary's is flattened; the sign for the mobile phone shop across from Singland Motors was knocked down, sheared above the ground bolts; sections of the fence along the Parkway2 development site are down as well. Only one momentary outage in the electricity, enough to point out to me that my UPS isn't working properly..

Not an insignificant amount of damage, and the most I've seen locally since 1998.

It was quite weird last night in bed getting shaken in the bed with movements in the house with gusts starting and stopping. Haven't felt that in quite a while. It wasn't as much fun as my camping at altitude in Italy this summer, and having a 3 hour lightning storm overhead with heavy rain. Still slept eventually with both storms.

fontenoy7

Red Pepper wrote: »

Doolin eh? Doolin is always fantastic during a storm. The cliff walk would be class this morning.

I agree. Although the winds are still high and swirling in Dublin and elsewhere a RED coded alert should be used sparingly....it does not warrant such an alert----orange at best.

In the Philippines they had some sustained winds of over 400 km per hour..that is three and a half times the power of the winds we had last night.

We have a very small population so minimal loss of human life in general. Even in the UK and France where the storms are the same as here and no worse in terms of wind speed there is always a huge deal of sensationalism ... 3 dead in bold - Britain Battered ...give me a break (out of a population of 60 million plus in the UK and 70 million in France). I mean every death is a tragedy but in comparison to storms in parts of the US it is really tame in nature.

Weathering

To add to my earlier post of those stating it was the worst in the East since the 90's one has to look no further than Storm Kyrill Jan 2007
Wind gust of 80knots(148km/h) were recorded at Dublin airport here is the link http://www.met.ie/climate/MonthlyWeather/clim-2007-Jan.pdf

And to put last nights storm in to context

Here is a list of gusts recorded pre midnight 26/12/89 http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/weath...0&CEL=C&SI=mph

Post Midnight 27/12/89 http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/weath...0&CEL=C&SI=mph

Higher gust were achieved last week 18/12/13 http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/weath...0&CEL=C&SI=mph

And the non event storm of xmas eve highest gust came up 2miles per hour shorter than last nights wind http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/weath...0&CEL=C&SI=mph

Last nights wind totals are nothing exceptional 133km/h strongest met gust at a coastal location
Top 4 inland gusts recorded-Shannon airport 117km/h
Dublin airport 115km/h
Cork 109km/h
Casement 108km/h
The other inland stations scraped the 100km/h mark or didn't Balyhaise highest record 94km/h

I'm not for saying the storm wasn't bad for those effected by it buts nothing out of the ordinary for a typical Irish storm, perhaps its because it hit areas less used to them it seems worse than it actually was. I believe the longevity of mean speeds lead to this

Hooter23

Very dark clouds out west heavier showers moving in now to galway

inisboffin

fontenoy7 wrote: »

We have a very small population so minimal loss of human life in general. Even in the UK and France where the storms are the same as here and no worse in terms of wind speed there is always a huge deal of sensationalism ... 3 dead in bold - Britain Battered ...give me a break (out of a population of 60 million plus in the UK and 70 million in France). I mean every death is a tragedy but in comparison to storms in parts of the US it is really tame in nature.

It could also be due to infrastructure and actual structure. More single car occupancy on the road in storms, way less stone-constructed houses, and perhaps even more houses built on land reclaimed from sea/lake/river sites in US (and in UK)? I lived in the US and I found the news there to be way more sensational (in general. There was a LOT of rubbish news).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBlDU8e7om0

mickmackey1

fontenoy7 wrote: »

In the Philippines they had some sustained winds of over 400 km per hour..that is three and a half times the power of the winds we had last night.

We have a very small population so minimal loss of human life in general. Even in the UK and France where the storms are the same as here and no worse in terms of wind speed there is always a huge deal of sensationalism ... 3 dead in bold - Britain Battered ...give me a break (out of a population of 60 million plus in the UK and 70 million in France). I mean every death is a tragedy but in comparison to storms in parts of the US it is really tame in nature.

Yep, it's all relative. After all the winds on Neptune routinely reach 1300mph

http://www.universetoday.com/22067/weather-on-neptune/

Hooter23

If you think about it we probably have some of the best weather in the world we rarely get very hot weather or extreme cold its nice and comfortably mild most of the time we get plenty of rain (water we need) and storms we get rarely get very distructive .... And its always changeable we never get the same weather for very very long periods.....

RoisinD

El Horseboxo wrote: »

Been in Doolin since yesterday morning. From the US though. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it was just a little bit of wind. It was very breezy at times. But red alerts and seek shelter just seems way over the top for what I experienced last night. And I wasn't talking about tornadic events. Derechos or just violent storms.

Last night was obviously more powerful than the average front crossing Ireland. But because it was expected to be more powerful I believe it was sensationalized. Especially on here. Your national weather service seemed more level headed. There's a light wooden table out the backyard here. It's still in the same position. And I'm near the coast. In a seek shelter event I would not expect to locate it. Never mind just finding it blown over.

Interesting that you are in Doolin and you obviously had a very different experience from the many people from there that I spoke to today. The vast majority of households in Doolin, Lisdoonvarna and across to kilfenora, a not inconsiderate distance, suffered power cuts which lasted from 10/11 pm last night to noon today. Indeed some power has not been restored as of yet. Some reported damage to property albeit most of it outside. Some parents had to go in the early hours of the morning to Lahinch to pick up their children from the late night discos and they said the waves were coming over the houses on to the main street. Doubt that a breeze would be responsible for that.

For those who do not normally experience strong winds on a fairly regular basis last night must have been a terrifying experience. At least the next time we post about the wind (or maybe breeze ) you will be able relate to what we are on about. No one should ever feel embarrassed after all it was only last week that a young girl lost her life from a tree falling on her car during a storm.

Irish Steve

OK, I have just arrived back in Meath from Clare, motorway pretty much all the way, but the observations go something like this, and some of my comments will also reflect what's been posted here since early this morning.

The Motorways from the South West to Dublin are fine, and apart from the M50 around Dublin, there are no issues worth worrying about.

The M50 wasn't much fun, it was too wet and too busy for comfort, and the driving standards were as usual abysmal, people with no lights, and hopping 2 or 3 lanes with no signal in the sort of conditions that were evident about 90 minutes ago only serve to confirm that there are some people on the roads that really should not have driving licences.

The Major N roads are OK, but there is evidence of some damage to trees, and advertising signs that have been blown over or destroyed, and there is a LOT of surface water lying around on low ground.

Minor roads are less simple, there's debris all over the place, and the ditches are well full, so if a car goes off the road into one or other ditch, the consequences will not be nice.

The death count from the storm was LOW. You can either thank God, or possibly more appropriately, thank the Met services and places like this forum for making sure that people were adequately informed about the potential risks of the weather over the last 24 hours.

I have a lot of driving experience, in a number of countries, and in varied conditions, some very dangerous, but I would not have wanted to be driving on any roads, let alone minor roads, in the wind strengths that were battering Clare last night, the combination of wind and rain last night would not have made for safe driving conditions.

Was the warning too strong? In my opinion, no it was not too strong, there was a real and extended risk of injury or damage to property, there were 2 cases of trampolines causing damage to the rail network in Dublin, things like that are not "normal" weather scenario events.

We all saw in real time the problems that were being caused to flight operations, and the diversions that happened as a result, the number of them was significant, and again, not normal operations.

I'm sure that ESB, and others that supply services are looking at significant costs as a result of last night's weather. That's not normal, so all in all, the last 24 hours have NOT been a normal event, and given the potential for injury or damage to people or property, the warnings were appropriate, and necessary, if for no other reason than to make very sure that people that are not living in on line forums are made aware of the potential for damage or injury that was very evident last night.

In passing, the same weather systems that have come over Ireland in recent days have caused far more disruption and damage in the UK and France, partly for the simple reason that population densities are higher, rail services are much more frequent, so under more pressure, and things like the electricity distribution services are privatised, so nasty words like profit margins and return on investment play a more significant role in things like maintenance decisions.

The other aspect of the whole event is that even with the weather mapping and information that is available, and it is a lot more than it used to be, predicting exactly what will happen, and where, is NOT possible to the extent that some people seem to think. The resident team of people that are prepared to speak out on their view of the likely outcome of the reports did a pretty good job of teasing out the timings, strength and implications of those reports, and anyone that thinks otherwise is welcome to try, and discover how fickle weather forecasting really is. MT mentioned that there are some areas where the reporting is less than comprehensive, which affects the ability of Met services to analyse what's happening, and there were some comments on air (I missed them) about less than adequate equipment at Dublin Airport, which caused some issues for flights arriving.

We had adequate warning of the timing, anticipated strength and expected duration of the event, and all of those aspects of the reports we got were helpful. The real time reports on line helped many people to assess what their response to the weather would be. The aviation reports gave a very accurate and almost real time indication of how things were developing, and what the effects were, and probably helped more than a few people change their plans, or amend them to cope with the situation.

All in all, a pretty good win win for all concerned.

whiteandlight

Spot on

/endthread

Hooter23

I think that because our weather is so changable thats what makes it interesting we never get time to used to the same type of weather and thats is part of the reason why its appears so extreme to us cause we never get the time to get used to it!

Son0vagun

Is it safe to leave the house yet?

mickmackey1

70,000 homes without power? That must be a record for an Irish storm.

M.T. Cranium

Relative to what regular users of this forum are accustomed to seeing, the level 3 status was justified. We certainly made it clear that level 3 conditions would be more likely in the counties from Galway around to Wexford and that it would be more like level 2 elsewhere with the north largely escaping the strong winds. I don't have moderator status and therefore can't edit thread titles, but I realize that the challenge is to keep the titles short enough that people can read them on a scroll, obviously you could have a longer thread title and a longer colour-coded preamble but we assume that if people are interested they will read the posts and get the more detailed version there.

From what was actually discussed in advance and the range of possibilities, I think the storm was generally well forecast and that we may have helped to minimize the outcome. A devil's advocate position might be to say, well let's just keep quiet the next time we see one of these coming, and compare the numbers of casualties and the property damage especially to vehicles or movable items, so we can measure the effect of what we're saying. However, that would be a very minimal experiment given that we realize around here that 90 to 95 per cent of Ireland might never once have visited this weather forum and 95 to 99 per cent likely had only the media and met service as their guides to what they might expect. In this storm, those 95 to 99 per cent would have been expecting almost the same as what our regular readers were reading (I gather that not every regular reader believes what they read here, that's fine with me, it's called freedom of speech, don't lose it).

I have the feeling that if we had kept a level 2 status in place, we would be swamped today with complaints about not going to level 3. However, in the future, it should be assumed that any level 3 status will carry with it a regional qualifier, there might be storms that are generally level 2 almost nation-wide but rarely if ever would there be widespread level 3 conditions, possibly in the 1839 storm. Even there, somebody would surely have been behind some hill and missed the thing.

And that brings me to the final point of my sermon (thank Goodness). It seems to be the same half dozen people who want to downgrade every storm during and after the fact even to the point of telling dozens of posters they imagined what they were reporting. Really? Perhaps the fact is, you are fortunate enough to live in some spot that's well protected from southwest winds and therefore won't ever be likely to see much wind damage. That's great but a lot of people aren't in that sort of a situation and need to know what's coming their way.

Just as a post-mortem on the actual observations (both official and personal weather station) I think the numbers were fairly exceptional near the south coast in particular, I don't recall seeing gusts over 70 knots at the south coast stations in recent storms and I noted that long-time posters were saying that they had established new record highs on their personal stations. It seems to me that the inland south had quite a widespread experience of damaging winds, along with coastal Kerry and Clare up to Galway Bay. And this is what the maps we posted would have conveyed to readers in advance, so I think we helped the right selection of readers prepare and know well in advance what was coming. If it was a few knots different, that's something to study but if you followed what some are saying here, anything but a perfect forecast for each individual in Ireland is not worth posting and the forum should close down. Maybe they should start up their own forums and see how they do. There might be quite a following for threads about events that were about to happen but would not amount to much, six or seven for sure would be there in a flash.

Storm 10

Big thanks to all concerned on the board for all the updates during the storm, well done MT for calling it so early and to Mag and Iancar, I have to say that I have endured many storms in Galway but this storm was not nice, the wind just did not gust it stayed at a very strong strength and when it did gust it shook the house, to have to put up with this for twelve hours was hard to take, thankfully no loss if life but it was a night to remember, during the height of the storm I was recording gusts of 78 mph, I got through the night with manys a laugh at what some were posting and it was great getting updates of when it might finally move in , once again thanks to every poster who took the time to post whatever info they had.

goat2

El Horseboxo wrote: »

Been in Doolin since yesterday morning. From the US though. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it was just a little bit of wind. It was very breezy at times. But red alerts and seek shelter just seems way over the top for what I experienced last night. And I wasn't talking about tornadic events. Derechos or just violent storms.

Last night was obviously more powerful than the average front crossing Ireland. But because it was expected to be more powerful I believe it was sensationalized. Especially on here. Your national weather service seemed more level headed. There's a light wooden table out the backyard here. It's still in the same position. And I'm near the coast. In a seek shelter event I would not expect to locate it. Never mind just finding it blown over.

i also live beside the sea, my experience was way differnt to yours, ten trees down one of these skimming the roof of garage and taking tiles with it along with water shoots, my barbecue whiich is made of heavy cast iron, has been smashed around the place, the only reason cars are safe and sound is, because i read mt,s forecast, otherwise they would have had the trees on top of them, i had moved them earlier on in the evening for safety sake away from the trees, i could not open doors after 10 as the suction wouild have blown skylights of roof, had to sleep in downstairs back room, the noise was so frightning, my home being a dormer upstairs felt like tunder all night, afraid the tiles would lift, i never ever felt so afraid in the past in a storm, never experienced anything like it,
to mt i say thank you very much, i still have my car

Tactical

Well said M.T.

aboyro

i'm a grown man and i was terrified last night. but just to clarify i was not scared for myself. i was scared for my 5 kids and 1 wife that were in the house with me. i am delighted to say that my house was tested last night and we passed:D:D

Kippure

Quote of the Storm or even the Year was this. Never laughed so much

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=88164323&postcount=381

diceyd

that was an interesting night to say the least,hope everybody stayed safe and thank you to all for their updates and warnings throughout the day,cheers guys.

budweiser6

Scary night last night in Limerick.. followed this thread until about 3:30 am, at 4:30 we woke suddenly to breaking glass downstairs bathroom window driven in by a fallen tree. From my perspective it was one of the worst storms for a few years now