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Richard Dixon · March 10th 08, 09:13 PM posted to uk.sci.weather

wrote in
:

... hate to wreck a good story, but the October 1987 storm was
*filling* as it crossed the country ... It reached its deepest, around
953 mbar, well south of Cornwall at midnight GMT and cleared the east
coast shortly before 0600 at 959 mbar. The speed of movement and the
tighter pressure gradient, particularly to its south, were responsible
for the much stronger winds, rather than the depth of the depression
or its change in central pressure ...

Slapped wrist for Dixon - used a bad example and I should know better
having looked at filling/deepening rates of historical windstorms!

1987 is an enigma for rapidly deepening windstorms - and yes it did fill
quite slowly over the UK (unlike the current storm) didn't it!! If you look
at rapidly deepening statistics it's not up there along the likes of other
storms (e.g. Lothar over France from 26 Dec 1999, Burns Day Storm).

Referring to Will's follow-up, my feeling is that the slow steady
development and also slow filling post-rapid deepening allowed enough time
for the bent-back warm front/cold frontal fracture to remain in place for a
longer period of time than normal to allow a sting jet to descend: (and
maybe hence the enigmatic behaviour).

Richard