Reviewing last night's plots, the next time I'll look at the necking in
the near real-time geopotential plots and minimum of the (don't know
what the term is) dam-km product , for the minimum value

A lot of interesting stuff on this paper, about the meteorology and how
the French (in English) handled the 1987 Great Felling

15–16 October 1987 - American Meteorological Society
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/...O%3E2.0.CO%3B2

(hyphen break)

"... Forecasts issued by DMN gave very strong and repeated warnings to
the media, security agencies, and specialized users.
....
Three to 4 days prior to the event, (French) forecasts mentioned the
possibility of a severe storm. ..."

but if the numerical model outputs had been slavishly observed, those
warnings could have neen rescinded.