Storm Darragh : Fri 6th /Sat 7th Dec 2024

Yeah it's not ideal ha I'm frozen!

I have the draughtiest windows in the world, a full daylight gap at the front door which faces NE (I've a curtain hanging at the door to try to insulate against it!)

Wind's whistling in every possible nook and cranny. I'm sitting in layers of wool clothes with a wool scarf/balaclava thing on and mittens, but I'll be soon getting the fur coat from upstairs if the power doesn't arrive back 😂

No range/stove/fireplace or anything here, everything's electric, and the storage heaters only had an hour and a half of heating up last night. Won't last till the 10th like this tho

On a positive note, i've found the tiniest sliver of 4G signal at a window so can watch some YT on the laptop till that dies again 😫

Should the thread title be updated to include tomorrow Sunday 8th ?

Those Leylandii trees have very shallow roots and yes tree surgeons are very very expensive. I would nearly try to get them all cut down to avoid future issues with them.

The wind is still howling here in Cork. Its been very slow to clear and really has been yellow/orange all day...

As I stated last night Leinster, Dublin area would get hammered and so it worked out. The red should have been for the East not West as per gradient showing on the models...

We are lucky, the power was restored about an hour ago. Sorry to those that are still without it. It's still quite windy during the showers. It feels raw with the wind chill too.

I'm doing a small project for a mapping course I'm on and was thinking I'd do it on something topical, i.e. data re the storm over the last 24 hours. I'm looking at the daily data on ME's website (https://www.met.ie/climate/available-data/daily-data), and I can get data there for each station. I'd have to select each station in turn and then copy and paste which is okay there's not that many, but I'm wondering if anyone here knows if I can get daily data a bit easier, like a csv download or the like? Not looking for huge amounts of data, just the headline figures, especially mean wind speed and max gust per station.

most of my neighbours around the Arklow area had shed roofs blow off last night

One had the shed roof hit the roof of his dwelling house where it is now wedged and it knocked an Esb pole on route

Red warning in Wicklow definitely merited

I’m away atm so Zi missed all this and due to the power cut was not able to monitor wind speeds so no idea what gusts were picked up

It's relaxing so long as it's not ripping the tiles off your house.

It's still howling here I'm Dublin and as a result both kids are still awake and it's not due to Toy Show tonight!

Just looked up ESB outage app and we're not due back until 19.00….......9/12/24!!!!!!.

Yes we have a genny but the phone is spotty and no Internet. Shall drive to Sligo (18 miles) tomorrow to get a Sunday lunch which may improve my general disposition! (auld wan with serious notions!!)

Re the ESB, I remember Ireland sent crews to northern France recently to help them get reconnected after a particularly bad storm. Could this situation warrant a similar type call for help from the state here?

This is just not true looking at the table posted by Sryan. However I will say the readings from Athenry weather station re wind speeds and gusts should be thrown in the nearest dustbin. The station must be indoors with the readings it put out versus the conditions and damage today. Maybe a station in Oranmore or Galway City would be more accurate.

2 people died in UK and over 445,000 people were without power on the Island of Ireland, damage to property and loads of downed trees as a result, I feel partly to blame become the other day I wanted this storm to be remembered as it's my name , as of 9pm their were 115,000 without power

Met Eireann did well with this storm and got there warnings correct. There is one particular page calling them a disgrace which I think is not called for because a red warning was not issued for the midlands. This particular forecaster is deluded if he thinks he will become Irelands main forecaster in years to come. A broken clock is correct twice a day.

As per the criteria below the national orange warning was correct.

🟠STATUS ORANGE

Infrequent and dangerous weather conditions which may pose a threat to life and property.

Prepare yourself in an appropriate way depending on location and activity. All people and property in the affected areas can be significantly impacted.

Check your activity/event and delay or cancel as appropriate.

🔴STATUS RED

Rare and very dangerous weather conditions from intense meteorological phenomena.

Take action to protect yourself and your property.

Follow instructions and advice given by the authorities under all circumstances and be prepared for exceptional measures.

I know but still , hope your power came back

Did someone order another North Westerly? A slow slow moving one at that.

I'm grateful he survived.

But this is an expensive lesson. Just glad it wasn't far, far worse. (I remember a storm/ mild hurricane years ago where a nurse was killed in the storm, having had to make an emergency trip for a patient. Similar circumstances, a tree fell on her and the passenger she was taking to hospital).

We had power up until about 8.45 am, and it stayed out for a few hours. Got lucky. Our sky box is on the fritz tho. I think the dish took a walloping during the bad winds and rains, so might have to call an engineer. Getting no signal, just watching netflix and youtube. I went to sleep (tried to) around 10 am. After staying up for about 38 hours to monitor the storm. I knew I wouldn't sleep with the wind and rain. Woke up about 1.30 am.

Glad the storm didn't take any lives.

^^ AFAIK businesses like pubs or restaurants are advised to remain closed during red warnings as their insurance won't cover that, so I'd bet at least some car policies may have similar clauses indeed (open to corrections though).

Re: storm - that was great opportunity for my weather station to log new wind speed record. Unfortunately, just 2 years old DAVIS VP2 wind gauge suddenly died one day before the storm. I didn't even think about going up the rooftop to troubleshoot the problem, considering the weather. Quickly set up spare VUE sensor suite I had in storage, just to realise it gives no temp/humidity readings at all, and wind speeds approx 20 times lower than real ones.

Without power for approx 17 hours, half of the forest located beside my land is down. No damages to my own property though, had everything moved in or secured prior to the storm's arrival.

Well I hoped for some shelter from the NW as we get hammered from the SW storms but it wasn't to be. Dead calm until 9:30pm and then like a switch it started. I headed to bed and left the family to watch the toy show. Even with headphones in and David Attenborough at full volume I could still hear the gusts. At about 1am I felt the floor vibrate with the gusts feeding down through the timbers into the floor, the joys of a dormer.

Camera notification at 5:42am saying offline so we kept power all the way through until then. It was still fairly going at it at 6am but the only damage was 1 lost ridge tile and a wheelie bin that somehow blew around from the front of the house to the back still upright and into the side of my car.

Certainly hit red alert territory for a while but wasn't the worst storm we've experienced here. Before we had fibre I used to have a weather station mounted on the Westnet pole on the gable and it used to record wind speeds about 10% higher than Newport weather station. Probably due to elevation and SW exposure. Not sure how we'd be with a NW wind. Time to invest in another weather station I think.

Power came back near 3pm yesterday so fair play to the ESB lads. I deal with them through work daily and know some of the lads out repairing during these storms. They're certainly one of the most skilled crew in Europe when it comes to repairs in dangerous conditions.

Still have no power but want to say thanks to the crews working to get things back. What a challenge.

Wind gusts and (available) sustained winds values for Storm Darragh compared to Isha from January this year.

Darragh had a slightly higher average max wind gust but very comparable. Bear in mind, the sustained winds are not the maximum of Darragh overall, they're the highest of "on the hour" values as the Met do not provide the max values overall until a month later. From experience, they're normally around 2-6 kph higher.

As I mentioned yesterday though regardless of that, the Mace Head sustained wind speed of 107 km/h is the highest anywhere in Ireland since Storm Ellen in August 2020.

No insurance company has those

Honestly the distance that myth has traveled,does anyone ever fact check or look things up for themselves anymore?