The Great Storm of Wednesday 12/02/2014

pauldry

thanks to all the posters here for such an accurate forecast.

I thought it would be 140kph tops so I was wrong!

And I thought I knew a bit about the weather.

However I also think Met Eireann did OK, maybe not as good as posters here but they are right most of the time and when they are wrong normally its a non event coz its something like more showery a day than usual or no snow happens.

They took on board all the signs in the end and even though their warning was a little too late at least they did cede and give one. Without Met Eireann I would not have been looking at hourly wind speeds in knots and gasping!

Also I must say what a tremendous job the crews of workers from ESB and Eircom and Local Authorities have done over the past few weeks. They deserve some credit too.

Fridays storm looks a bit more of an England event but I havent a clue after being 20kph at least out with the last storm. Leave it to MAq and Weathercheck and of course MT who gives all the times and everything even of when storm will hit! Thats one thing met eireann could involve more in their forecasts to be fair.

e.g. 10am to 1pm - Windy in Connacht 2 - 4pm Windy in Munster and Leinster
Calm Ulster (since this seems to be the trend):)

[-0-]

So was this the worst storm we've ever had?

Red Nissan

[-0-] wrote: »

So was this the worst storm we've ever had?

By no means. It was too brief. We've just not had them in a while and not nationwide, and not in a seemingly endless series, but this storm was flagged as potentially the most violent event in recent years for quite a long time beforehand.

We had only about two hours of total commitment in this event, consider making that eight hours and IMO, it [then] had the potential to be worst storm ever.

lolo62

The music school I work in was evacuated at 5 o'clock as there was scaffolding on a site close by.
In ten years working there that's a first.

sully2010

pistolpetes11 wrote: »

I will leave this thread open for people to log their experiences from Wednesdays storm


Continued discussion on upcoming events will take place at the thread below

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=88934916#post88934916

Thanks Boss

dublinlady79

I saw a pic of a van crushed by a tree in dublin this eveng, some one was realy looking doen on him to survive without serious injury

Red Nissan

lolo62 wrote: »

The music school I work in was evacuated at 5 o'clock as there was scaffolding on a site close by.
In ten years working there that's a first.

Cork and Limerick Universities were also evacuated.

[-0-]

Red Nissan wrote: »

By no means. It was too brief. We've just not had them in a while and not nationwide, and not in a seemingly endless series, but this storm was flagged as potentially the most violent event in recent years for quite a long time beforehand.

We had only about two hours of total commitment in this event, consider making that eight hours and IMO, it [then] had the potential to be worst storm ever.

Surely it should be measured by damaged caused as well though, and the damaged cause by this was quite significant.

It also set new wind gust records in lots of places.

Red Nissan

[-0-] wrote: »

Surely it should be measured by damaged caused as well though, and the damaged cause by this was quite significant.

It also set new wind gust records in lots of places.

It is early days, but consideration must be taken of the series of storms and the saturation of the ground in particular relation to tree felling.

Structural damage is very suspect as a lot of new properties [relatively] have suffered.

A big point in your argument is the amount of vehicles turned over, we don't see that in Ireland.

Cost of damage, IMO, this storm is relatively minor, cost of lives, as of time of post, no reports of deaths. Not so in more recent storms and look at the coastal destruction from the tidal surges recently, damage is priceless.

Lesson from this storm is we are building poorly.

Scartbeg

According to the recorded message on ESB Networks fault line, the damage was all due to a Hurricane.

Perhaps their met advisers need to go on a refresher course!

[-0-]

Red Nissan wrote: »

It is early days, but consideration must be taken of the series of storms and the saturation of the ground in particular relation to tree felling.

Structural damage is very suspect as a lot of new properties [relatively] have suffered.

A big point in your argument is the amount of vehicles turned over, we don't see that in Ireland.

Cost of damage, IMO, this storm is relatively minor, cost of lives, as of time of post, no reports of deaths. Not so in more recent storms and look at the coastal destruction from the tidal surges recently, damage is priceless.

Lesson from this storm is we are building poorly.

A lot of the structural damage I saw in Shannon, Co Clare was to buildings built in the 70s. Lots of houses with their walls knocked over, tiles gone missing, chimneys knocked over, etc.

Anyway, I'm definitely interested to see where this stands and also how the comparison is made. I'd like to see a detailed study on it.

I also hope it will stop people in their tracks, the people who have the perception that if the yanks built brick homes tornadoes wouldn't damage them. I've seen tornadoes literally explode brick houses. That's a discussion for another day perhaps.

BorneTobyWilde

It would be great to see a dedicated thread for pictures of this storm/damage.
Picture thread, no chat. Would be great archive of pictures.
Just a thought!

sully2010

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

It would be great to see a dedicated thread for pictures of this storm/damage.
Picture thread, no chat.Would be great archive of pictures.
Just a thought!

Sure open a thread, good idea

BorneTobyWilde

sully2010 wrote: »

Sure open a thread, good idea

I'm off to bed, hopefully someone will open thread.
It would be good to see all the video and pictures in one place. At the moment they are lost in a sea of pages.

bajer101

Re: Met.ie not warning us correctly about this. While I have huge respect for the Met and can completely understand them having to be conservative with their forecasts - IMO, the criticisms about them not warning us about this storm are perfectly valid. Their forecast after the RTE 9pm news last night showed NO Red alerts and no indication that we were about to have the worst storm of the winter. For the average viewer, the body language and tone of the forecaster gave absolutely no warning about what was about to hit. The average viewer got no indication that there was a huge storm coming.

The talk about the colour coded warning system is a bit disingenuous. There is nothing wrong with the colour coded warning system - the problem is that the warnings were not issued. As of 11pm last night, there were no Red warnings for any part of the country, but by this afternoon there were Red warnings for the whole country!

My friends and family rely on me to give them weather forecasts because they have no faith in our national forecaster, which is just crazy! I warned them about the severity of this storm, but the forecast after the 9pm news didn't. Met.ie are too conservative and don't give any warning about what could happen. They seem to be more concerned about covering their arses. If your go to place for the weather forecast is an internet forum with amateur forecasters instead of the national forecaster with highly qualified scientists - there is something wrong somewhere.

sully2010

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

I'm off to bed, hopefully someone will open thread.
It would be good to see all the video and pictures in one place. At the moment they are lost in a sea of pages.

Done:)

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057147777

aboyro

aboyro wrote: »

I get the feeling that eveyln dos'nt want to have her micheal fish moment. Are we at risk of leaving this to the last minute for a real warning. i'm worried about the wind during normal daytime activity hours?

i posted that at 9.30 on tuesday and got lambasted for it??? 4 hrs later when most of the country are in bed a red warning is issued and then tonight on the news, the guy from the "severe weather task force" has the gall to say that a red warning storm was forecast. i mean who's he codding,shiftworker's like myself got the red warning. at no point in time did schools even contemplte closing for the sake of their pupils purley because they had no idea what was coming and thats pisses me off. that no-one was killed yesterday is simply amazing

tiegan

aboyro wrote: »

i posted that at 9.30 on tuesday and got lambasted for it??? 4 hrs later when most of the country are in bed a red warning is issued and then tonight on the news, the guy from the "severe weather task force" has the gall to say that a red warning storm was forecast. i mean who's he codding,shiftworker's like myself got the red warning. at no point in time did schools even contemplte closing for the sake of their pupils purley because they had no idea what was coming and thats pisses me off. that no-one was killed yesterday is simply amazing

Too right, only that I work nights and watched the board closely did I begin to realise what we were in for - and lucky I did as I live in south tipp and ME only gave us a yellow warning, but thanks to all you boardsies experts I was prepared. Well done all of you!!

M.T. Cranium

I didn't notice a follow-up report from the poster(s) who gave us some info at the onset of maximum wind gusts on Beara Island in Kerry -- hope they're okay and sure we all would be interested in hearing from them.

michaelm

bajer101 wrote: »

Re: Met.ie not warning us correctly about this. While I have huge respect for the Met and can completely understand them having to be conservative with their forecasts - IMO, the criticisms about them not warning us about this storm are perfectly valid. Their forecast after the RTE 9pm news last night showed NO Red alerts and no indication that we were about to have the worst storm of the winter. For the average viewer, the body language and tone of the forecaster gave absolutely no warning about what was about to hit. The average viewer got no indication that there was a huge storm coming.

The talk about the colour coded warning system is a bit disingenuous. There is nothing wrong with the colour coded warning system - the problem is that the warnings were not issued. As of 11pm last night, there were no Red warnings for any part of the country, but by this afternoon there were Red warnings for the whole country!

My friends and family rely on me to give them weather forecasts because they have no faith in our national forecaster, which is just crazy! I warned them about the severity of this storm, but the forecast after the 9pm news didn't. Met.ie are too conservative and don't give any warning about what could happen. They seem to be more concerned about covering their arses. If your go to place for the weather forecast is an internet forum with amateur forecasters instead of the national forecaster with highly qualified scientists - there is something wrong somewhere.

Totally agree with all of the above. I actually believe that the work of the outstanding forecasters here could actually have saved lives yesterday. I work in a large secondary school and we made key decisions based on what we were reading on this forum. Some colleagues, who were guided by our National forecaster, were incredulous at measures being taken as only yellow warnings were in place for our region. The red alert for our area was only issue at lunchtime, 2 hours later we were without power, phones, mobile signals with buses unable to run due to fallen trees and no communication possible with parents. Thankfully due to the good folk here we had been able to issue the necessary alerts in advance, though to many raised eyebrows at the time. Thanks for all the help. You probably have no real idea of the immense contribution you made over the last few days to the safety of many people in this country.

Itsdacraic

Maybe if Met Eireann spent more time reading here than preparing rants against the Donegal postman they would have been more on the ball.

From reading here last week there were several mentions as to the potential severity of this storm. Yet evelyn Cusack came out the weekend and said there would be no storms in the coming week.

Most people take their weather forecast from the previous nights news, issuing upgrades at midnight is no use to the average Joe soap. MT etc flagged this storm and its potential severity way out, yet it seems have caught Met Eireann on the hop.

touts

michaelm wrote: »

Totally agree with all of the above. I actually believe that the work of the outstanding forecasters here could actually have saved lives yesterday. I work in a large secondary school and we made key decisions based on what we were reading on this forum. Some colleagues, who were guided by our National forecaster, were incredulous at measures being taken as only yellow warnings were in place for our region. The red alert for our area was only issue at lunchtime, 2 hours later we were without power, phones, mobile signals with buses unable to run due to fallen trees and no communication possible with parents. Thankfully due to the good folk here we had been able to issue the necessary alerts in advance, though to many raised eyebrows at the time. Thanks for all the help. You probably have no real idea of the immense contribution you made over the last few days to the safety of many people in this country.

I agree. I sent MT's "stay off the roads" post around to people at work and it quickly went viral in the office. Some people ignored it and got caught in horriffic driving conditions. Most people stayed in the office until the worst had passed and then headed home. They encountered awful driving conditions with trees down etc but at least they were not on the road as those trees were falling. I passed one tree with a car under it and another on a bend that a landrover had crashed into (no one was hurt). If I had left at my usual time I would have been on that stretch of road around the height of the storm. MT won a lot of fans in here yesterday.

munsterlegend

Itsdacraic wrote: »

Maybe if Met Eireann spent more time reading here than preparing rants against the Donegal postman they would have been more on the ball.

From reading here last week there were several mentions as to the potential severity of this storm. Yet evelyn Cusack came out the weekend and said there would be no storms in the coming week.

Most people take their weather forecast from the previous nights news, issuing upgrades at midnight is no use to the average Joe soap. MT etc flagged this storm and its potential severity way out, yet it seems have caught Met Eireann on the hop.

It was not just MT but also Maq and WC who provided regular daytime invaluable updates which MT can't do due to time difference etc. The three together provided a formidable forecasting coverage.

FutureGuy

I trust the opinion of the boardies here than I do most official channels...

Are we past the worst of it or are we expecting worse tomorrow in terms of wind? I heard a few people saying that wind speeds will be higher tomorrow but cannot confirm it anywhere.

maquiladora

FutureGuy wrote: »

I trust the opinion of the boardies here than I do most official channels...

Are we past the worst of it or are we expecting worse tomorrow in terms of wind? I heard a few people saying that wind speeds will be higher tomorrow but cannot confirm it anywhere.

No, not at all as severe tomorrow.

Yesterday was a one in 10-20 year event.

FourFourRED

Vodafone signal down in Killarney since yesterday. All other networks appear to be working fine.

RobertKK

Looking locally, I couldn't understand why Kilkenny and some of the surrounding counties were on yellow alert, while not far away and it is a small country, there was red and amber warning.
Everyone knows including Met Eireann that inland areas can get violent winds.
It had Christmas Eve 1997 written all over it, and so it was, schools and a lot of workplaces should have not been opened yesterday, but thankfully no one seriously injured or killed. Ireland was lucky yesterday, many people have been killed in lesser storms.

Red Pepper

michaelm wrote: »

Totally agree with all of the above. I actually believe that the work of the outstanding forecasters here could actually have saved lives yesterday.

To provide balance, over the past 8 "storm" events we've had since December, there were also many posters that wanted to ramp up the warning levels unnecessarily.

For RTE, I suppose it is a balancing act especially when the Red status really only applied to the SW counties.

For me, if any storm is coming, people should prepare for the worst.

miss no stars

My worry is that ME will now swing back the opposite direction and start issuing red alerts all over the place. People will eventually become complacent because - sure those red alerts rarely amount to anything serious.

They need to work on the timelyness of their warnings. After midnight is too late. WAY too late. 6 o'clock news it should have been "big storm coming. We currently have a lot of areas on orange alert and we are continuing to monitor the storm as it approaches. It is likely that we will upgrade the warning to a red alert for most of Munster and yellow alerts will possibly also be upgraded to orange or red, depending on the progress of the storm. Schools and offices should monitor the development of these alerts as travel to and from work and school in the affected areas might become very dangerous and decisions should be taken early. We advise against holding lessons in portakabin classrooms in affected areas due to the potential severity of the wind gusts forecasted".

So, you still don't necessarily have to issue a red alert, but people know it might be coming and this is one they need to watch. Instead they glossed over it.

Steopo

Forecasting is not an exact science so you can get it wrong, things can change at the last minute or you can make the wrong judgement call – every weather forecaster amateur or professional have had those moments where they’ve over or under called events

For the past week yesterday’s storm was on the horizon but it was an unsettled situation with the models showing different tracks which always makes it more difficult depending which model you put your faith in. It was clear it was a very dangerous storm that was going to be either a direct hit on the south or very close to the south coast but there still wasn’t full confidence on exactly the track up until Mon even on boards.ie. Once models all started aligning on the track within 24 hours of the storm arriving it became clearer this was going to be a severe storm for South & south East but it was rapidly developing so was still open to change.
I’m sure internally Met Eireann will review yesterday’s situation and look at whether they made the right judgment calls and conclude that they didn’t. In my view they made the following mis judgments
- Announced last week there were no more major storms on the horizon (I think what they meant was the models weren’t showing up any storms directly impacting Ireland which at that stage was true on some models but they knew the situation was unstable so it was a poor comment)
- Left it too late to put out a Red warning - not sure what changed between 9pm & 12am but in hindsight they should have put the Red Alert up at 9pm or 6pm (in my view they were waiting for the short term forecast to come into view but given the time of night they needed to make a braver call here earlier)
- Red warning was the correct call in the end but only covered Cork & Kerry which was not wide enough, they must have made a call that winds would not sustain the strength when pushed inland but all the models did indicate this would happen. Upgrading to red warnings during an event is not something they would want to have to do.

I personally think ME do a very good job and generally make very good judgement calls but yesterday mistakes were made not necessarily in the forecast but the way it was communicated.

One thing Met E have not embraced is social media & interaction with the public (their twitter feed is static & I’m not sure they use Facebook) – this is where boards.ie excels. If Met E were interacting & giving their insights behind the forecasts it would be hugely valued and they could give scenario or probabilities of events happening rather than just a definitive forecast.