The Great Storm of Wednesday 12/02/2014

whitebriar

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.

who are these few people and what are their qualifications/experience?

At its most basic level,if you know nothing about weather, then get your information from a reasonably informed source like here which is what you are doing.
We do not know how strong winds will be tomorrow except to say it's very unlikely to come near yesterday's event but such is the nature of this active beast,that can change.
To make it easier for you and others, there's 5 or 6 posters here deeply into the analysis, I would suggest you bookmark their profiles and click on the recent posts links in those pages to quickly get to their thoughts as the threads get long and wielding in the run up and during events.

Oneiric 3

bajer101 wrote: »

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!

This just confirms my own opinion that these colour warnings may not be what they are cracked up to be. Met.ie, both on their website and in their TV forecasts gave ample warning of the possibility of stormy weather 48 hours before the storm hit, but unfortunately it now seems to be the case that warnings are only heeded by the general public when there is a colour put on them.

I also think that comments (not by you Bejar) regarding the national met service having a 'Michael Fish' moment with this storm are unfair. OK, fair enough, Eveyln Cusack called for a storm free week this week but that is just the nature of our unpredictable weather. Storms like this can only be really pinned down a day or two in advance. Many people seem to forget that the next day after this statement, she warned that this system was developing and posing a real threat to the country.

MyStubbleItches

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

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.

Bere Island is in Cork. The Beara Peninsula is split between Cork and Kerry but Eyeries, where those posts were coming from, is Cork. Just saying!

Beautiful morning here in Mid/West Cork. Light covering of snow on higher ground.

touts

Aodhagan wrote: »

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

It seems Vodafone were too cheap to have backup generators on their masts. They rely almost completely on the ESB. ESB goes down and so does their network. I'd say the other networks are up because they had generators etc.

From http://www.vodafone.ie/aboutus/notifications#networkoutages

Network outages - 12/2/14
Unfortunately, due to power outages as a direct result of severe weather conditions, mainly across the South West and South East of Ireland, Vodafone Ireland customers in parts of Galway, Cork, Kerry, Waterford, Limerick, Wexford, Kilkenny, Laois, Mayo and Clare are experiencing coverage issues. Vodafone Ireland would like to reassure customers that field force engineers are doing everything in their power to restore coverage in impacted areas. There are generators en route to key impacted sites and once on site, coverage can be restored. However, the continuing bad weather has a delaying impact as road conditions are dangerous in places and site access can be limited. Vodafone’s on the ground engineers are working hard to restore coverage to all customers as soon as possible. We will make every effort to keep customers informed.

FutureGuy

whitebriar wrote: »

who are these few people and what are their qualifications/experience?

At its most basic level,if you know nothing about weather, then get your information from a reasonably informed source like here which is what you are doing.
We do not know how strong winds will be tomorrow except to say it's very unlikely to come near yesterday's event but such is the nature of this active beast,that can change.
To make it easier for you and others, there's 5 or 6 posters here deeply into the analysis, I would suggest you bookmark their profiles and click on the recent posts links in those pages to quickly get to their thoughts as the threads get long and wielding in the run up and during events.

Thanks,
Could you PM me their names please thank you.

Macy0161

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

This just confirms my own opinion that these colour warnings may not be what they are cracked up to be. Met.ie, both on their website and in their TV forecasts gave ample warning of the possibility of stormy weather 48 hours before the storm hit, but unfortunately it now seems to be the case that warnings are only heeded by the general public when there is a colour put on them.

It wasn't just the general public that missed it. The Emergency Coordination Group (or whatever it's called), went on the radio News at One on Tuesday lunchtime saying they were going to stop meeting every day as they'd been told that the outlook was normal for this time of year and there there was nothing too severe coming up! This was Tuesday lunchtime (It isn't up on the radio player, but it is in the podcasts). In fairness, Evelyn did highlight the winds on the coast, but then twice called it as comparable to the Christmas storms.

I do think in the vast majority of cases Met Eireann get it right (even if it's not what people want to hear sometimes), and talk of Micheal Fish moments is ridiculous, but they do have a tendancy to attempt to be too definitive. The met office on BBC give themselves a bit more wriggle room and trust the public with information. As someone who's only learning, I think it's great when ME forecasters give that little bit more information, which a lot of them do from time to time.

Macy0161

touts wrote: »

It seems Vodafone were too cheap to have backup generators on their masts. They rely almost completely on the ESB. ESB goes down and so does their network. I'd say the other networks are up because they had generators etc.

Do the other networks stay up? And if so, which ones? I'm mulling over a switch for coverage reasons, but the last power outage for us, vodafone was gone too which was a ballache.

touts

Macy0161 wrote: »

It wasn't just the general public that missed it. The Emergency Coordination Group (or whatever it's called), went on the radio News at One on Tuesday lunchtime saying they were going to stop meeting every day as they'd been told that the outlook was normal for this time of year and there there was nothing too severe coming up! This was Tuesday lunchtime (It isn't up on the radio player, but it is in the podcasts). In fairness, Evelyn did highlight the winds on the coast, but then twice called it as comparable to the Christmas storms.

I do think in the vast majority of cases Met Eireann get it right (even if it's not what people want to hear sometimes), and talk of Micheal Fish moments is ridiculous, but they do have a tendancy to attempt to be too definitive. The met office on BBC give themselves a bit more wriggle room and trust the public with information. As someone who's only learning, I think it's great when ME forecasters give that little bit more information, which a lot of them do from time to time.

That crowd haven't a clue. They meet every so often to discuss things but they never seem to do anything. Their head was on the 6pm news last night on RTE and he was shocking. He was reading from notes he had on his desk and clearly had no knowledge of what was actually going on around the country.

nelly17

Macy0161 wrote: »

Do the other networks stay up? And if so, which ones? I'm mulling over a switch for coverage reasons, but the last power outage for us, vodafone was gone too which was a ballache.

Its much of a muchness TBH I work in the industry and another operator is dealing with 223 sites down today - No operator will invest in a Generator on all cell sites as it will cost too much also it simply can not be done because some masts are on building roofs etc and you would need landlord permission.

darragh o meara

How's tomorrows impending storm looking ?

ninebeanrows

darragh o meara wrote: »

How's tomorrows impending storm looking ?

It really should not be anything in comparison to yesterday unless there are major changes in the Model output.

johnny_adidas

Macy0161 wrote: »

Do the other networks stay up? And if so, which ones? I'm mulling over a switch for coverage reasons, but the last power outage for us, vodafone was gone too which was a ballache.

Meteor is down locally anyway, data completely gone and intermittent gsm

fryup

so whats the offical word,

was it a hurricane or not ??

maquiladora

fryup wrote: »

so whats the offical word,

was it a hurricane or not ??

We don't get hurricanes in this part of the world. They are tropical cyclones.

Mince Pie

It's amazing nobody was killed judging by the pictures and reports.

fricatus

Mince Pie wrote: »

It's amazing nobody was killed judging by the pictures and reports.

I was thinking the same thing. A huge tree at the back of my neighbour's garden came down cleanly in the garden, taking two smaller trees with it, and flipping our garden shed over in the process.

It fell in the precise spot you'd have wanted it felled. Another 30-40 degrees to the right and it would have damaged their house, or worse (they were home). If it was 90 degrees, it would have demolished my kitchen! :eek:

We were so lucky... we used to have a tree that I used to both admire and worry about, but now all we have to worry about is filling in a 3m wide hole in between the two gardens!

Dcully

Im amazed there was no fatalities.

I took these pics this morning in Monasterevin, worst thing is hundreds of schoolkids walked by this exact area which is yards from the primary school right about the time the storm hit.

Danno

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.

http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10251133/

Here is Evelyn's Sunday forecast.

She said... No Sign of any storm at this stage 0:28

She hinted at isobars close together for a time on Wednesday at 1:48 but nothing still at that stage to suggest a storm was brewing.

But do keep in touch with the forecast on a daily basis at 2:06 which shows Uncertainty in that Sunday forecast.

Tom Cruises Left Nut

Danno wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10251133/

Here is Evelyn's Sunday forecast.

She said... No Sign of any storm at this stage 0:28

She hinted at isobars close together for a time on Wednesday at 1:48 but nothing still at that stage to suggest a storm was brewing.

But do keep in touch with the forecast on a daily basis at 2:06 which shows Uncertainty in that Sunday forecast.

Well put, a lot of the nonsense here is uninformed

Macy0161

Looking at a lot of the photo's, I'm surprised at the number of tree's that have snapped rather than tipping. I put the number of trees falling down to the sodden ground making the roots weak - shows the power in the wind I guess.

Says I To Bridey

Went up to the local woods to survey the damage, lot of trees down. The sheer power of the wind must have been something to take some of them down, massive trees knocked over from their roots

SicklySweet

Decided to pick up the pieces of my shed since it collapsed yesterday. Found a Sindy doll from 1995, amazingly still in okay condition. Still in its box. I win Darwin. *middle finger dance*


PS am not responsible for mother nature karma

ninebeanrows

Certainly the storm seems to have been the worst since 1961 in parts of the south and southwest.

munsterlegend

Weathercheck wrote: »

Certainly the storm seems to have been the worst since 1961 in parts of the south and southwest.

The worst since 1997 definitely which was pretty bad as well. not sure what the gust comparisons were but they weren't too far apart i'd say.

GE90

GE90 wrote: »

Heard masive crash outside, opened front door to see the massive oak tree out the back has falled true my garage and crushed my car. Thinks are mental here in clare. Will try and get a pick up, power is gone aswell.

Power finally back here, many thanks to the esb, council, eircom, emergency services ect. they have been doing trojan work all night.

Here are some pics of that tree that fell true my garage and onto my car:












The car is a write off anyway the roof caved it. The winds yesterday were just crazy. Their are trees and power lines down everywhere. It took me 5 hours yesterday with a chainsaw just to clear the driveway so I could get out. I will have plenty of wood for the fire do!

tphase

A quick plot of wind speed data from my met station. Blue dots are one minute means, red are the gust speeds for each minute

j.mcdrmd

Sincere thanks to the boards forecasters for the following:-

No tree or truck fell on or near me, no flying denis (debris) hit me either.

Car safely parked and all outdoor potential denis safely stored.

From what I heard on TV and Radio weather broadcasts I would have undertaken an impossible journey and been trapped en route. I decided it was not worth the risk based on information found here on Tuesday evening.

I would love to be able to read all the charts and models, maybe some day I will find the time to make a start.

A small piece of my roof fell off but can be easily fixed and not even worthy of a pic.

Also, and not to be underestimated, nobody had to waste time worrying about me for hours yesterday.

John.Icy

I keep reading how this storm was the worst for many since 1997.

As I wasn't very into the weather in 2007, can I get some people's opinions on storm Kyrill from 2007?

93mph gust in Dublin, so I'm sure many other places saw high winds? Why do we never reference this clear beast of a storm, and always go back to 1997 to reference gusts? (Don't know peak gusts for 1997, although I know it was more sustained)

EDIT: Looking at the monthly report from 2007 I can see that Dublin and Casement were pretty big outliers and gusts elsewhere bar the usual North/West culprits were mediocre. Question answered!

Chris_5339762

No-one at work on Tuesday seemed to have any idea that this was coming. I parked in a more sheltered place than usual deliberately, as my usual spot is next to some bushes that I thought would scratch the car up. People at work cycled in, not knowing that the afternoon would be a warzone.

I live in Dublin16 so am nicely sheltered. My weather station only picked up about 55kmh gust, less than the 85kmh I got last April in a storm.

chinacup

FutureGuy wrote: »

Thanks,
Could you PM me their names please thank you.

Could you post their names to us also, when you get them?