Atlantic Storm Watch 2014: February/March

M.T. Cranium

From south to north, I am finding the following scatter for Friday night into Saturday ..

UKMO is weakest solution and barely scrapes inland around Cork-Waterford at 957 mb.

ECM appears to track inland around Shannon at about 950 mb filling west of Dublin at 953 mb.

GME hits hard around Galway Bay with 940 mb centre that emerges from north Leinster still sub 950.

GFS very similar to WRF above has 945 mb low into Mayo and out through Ulster

GEM maintains sub 945 mb low on all-Atlantic track that scrapes past Belmullet and Malin Head.

Weighted average of track and intensity favours something like GFS on GME track. That would give the following maximum gusts as shown in this map, ranging from near 65 kts southwest to under 40 knots most of Ulster.



Plenty of time for this to shift in either direction, looking at the storm's performance today in eastern North America, would put a 6:5 weighting on northward rather than southward. Snowfall overperformed in Toronto and northern Vermont, warming overperformed in Long Island and New Jersey. But these were rather subtle differences from model consensus.

maquiladora

Statement from The National Coordination Group on Recent Severe Weather

A meeting of the National Coordination Group to discuss the on-going severe weather was convened in the (NECC) National Emergency Coordination Centre today (5th February 2014) to review the response to date, to assess the impact of the storms on infrastructure and communities and to ensure that the response of relevant local authorities, Government Departments and Agencies continues to be coordinated.

Met Éireann reported that Ireland has been subject to a sequence of Atlantic storms since 13 December 2013, resulting in extreme wind conditions, episodes of heavy rainfall and lately storm surges associated with high tides and low pressure atmospheric conditions. While the risk of tidal flooding will recede in the coming days, because the seasonal high tides have passed, the current weather pattern is likely to continue for the next 7-10 days, and the major risk in the period will come from river flooding, as nearly every river in the country is already near capacity.

http://www.merrionstreet.ie/index.php/2014/02/statement-from-the-national-coordination-group-on-recent-severe-weather-2/

ninebeanrows

ECMWF similar to other operations with worst gradient just off the south coast.

Again i feel we have been rather lucky through this extreme passage of weather to not have had a real monster wind storm impacting major population centres.

It has been stormy and the usual spots have had extreme gusts but we have not had a real extreme wind storm which considering the set up and series of storms has been very lucky.

And again it appears to be the case Saturday morning with the low losing it's extreme power as it approaches the south coast (on current output).



And what i mean by extreme wind storm is having this system over Ireland at it's intensity 24 hour previously...

sunbabe08

This storm FOR Saturday is making my poor mother very jumpy :rolleyes: she thinks its coming tonight

Steopo

I hope Johnny Sexton was out practicing yesterday - it won't be nearly as bad as the Southwest but it's looking like very windy & wet in Dublin on Sat unless it tracks a bit further south

horsefarm

Finally the power is back. The wind must have really mangled the cables for it to take this long! I was thinking about the ESB crews out in that storm last night working away. Fair play to them. Not an easy job

maquiladora

A long way off, but ECM showing a nasty looking low for Wales/Southern England at 144.

AdamB

Winter lamp post watching?
Suir in Cahir is still rising, I heard rumours that the bridge may have to be closed later..

ninebeanrows

Ohhhhp, this is the type of system @ 144hrs ECMWF that can do damage.

Ages away though.

Villain

The river Slaney in Tullow at 18:00 today

maquiladora

One day of mostly dry conditions tomorrow before very heavy rain sweeps the country again on Friday.

Hooter23

Sick of hearing on TV now that this is climate change what happened to the days when we simply called it weather.....

cyclops999

It appears that the water level of River Shannon in Athlone has risen by 3mm in 24 hours Lough Ree looking massive serious flooding expected.

Villain

Just noticed already this month I have recorded 53.6mm!!

relaxed

cyclops999 wrote: »

It appears that the water level of River Shannon in Athlone has risen by 3mm in 24 hours Lough Ree looking massive serious flooding expected.

3mm or 3cm?

3cm is just over an inch, does not sound a lot?

Unless it does it every day for months, which it probably has!

DOCARCH

Villain wrote: »

Just noticed already this month I have recorded 53.6mm!!

At 72.0mm here now for the month and it's only Day 5!

After a pretty wet January and very wet start to February, anymore rain is heading straight for the rivers.

Meteorite58

North Kerry :12.2mm today making it 86.9mm for Feb. so far ( 308.1mm for year )

Land waterlogged in many places, rivers and streams overflowing. At this stage the more rain, the more problems.

Very blustery during the showers today, top speed 68 km/h W

Bar 981.1mb Rising Rapidly ( LOW 951.2MB )

maiden

Clare issued with flood warning now

irishgeo

DOCARCH wrote: »

At 72.0mm here now for the month and it's only Day 5!

After a pretty wet January and very wet start to February, anymore rain is heading straight for the rivers.

never seen the water table as high. the fields are saturated. luckily i am not at risk of flooding.

red_bairn

maiden wrote: »

Clare issued with flood warning now

You need to clear out those friend requests.

Red Pepper

maquiladora wrote: »

WRF showing gusts up to 120 km/h on the southwest coast Saturday. A relatively minor track shift could increase that to ~130 km/h.

At least coastal flooding shouldn't be too much of an issue with lower tides over the weekend.

Can someone explain to me why the wind speeds are highest (red in Kerry/Cork) where the isobars are not as close together as say Clare and Galway? Am I missing something?

Red Pepper

irishgeo wrote: »

never seen the water table as high. the fields are saturated. luckily i am not at risk of flooding.

I go down to Lough Corrib regularly and even though it is very high, it still has 1-2 feet to go before it hits the 2009 flood highs. Weirdly it was very very low in November but I think it was the driest November in decades.

maquiladora

Red Pepper wrote: »

Can someone explain to me why the wind speeds are highest (red in Kerry/Cork) where the isobars are not as close together as say Clare and Galway? Am I missing something?

The lines on that chart are not isobars, they are stream lines showing wind direction.

ninebeanrows

18z GFS places some windy enough weather into the south and southeast.

ninebeanrows

Although a bit of an anomalous solution with more widespread strong winds over the country.

ninebeanrows

I note there are a few perturbations that are brining this further north this evening but we will know more in the morning.

One of the more northerly solutions.

delw

Is there any particular reason why these storms are peaking out sea & losses some intensity ( even if only slightly) before it hits coastline

Oscar Bravo

Just like to say at this point, credit to Weathercheck for posting chart after chart over the past few days and indeed in any event. well done and keep it up!

maquiladora

18Z GFS/WRF would bring 90-100 km/h gusts widely over inland areas to a lot of the country. Shows how much can change from run to run at this stage still.

maquiladora

delw wrote: »

Is there any particular reason why these storms are peaking out sea & losses some intensity ( even if only slightly) before it hits coastline

The ingredients for the rapid deepening is the temperature gradient and strong jet over the Atlantic. Once these lows deepen it usually happens quite quickly and unlike tropical systems that can keep trucking for days, these extratropical cyclones begin to weaken after they peak. So to be impacted by one at its most dangerous phase requires all the ingredients to be aligned just right so that the timing of the development exactly matches its position in relation to our small corner of the world. Always long odds. Dec 24 1997 is a perfect example of when that happened.