Just a request here, did anyone on this ng
experience this? If so what was it like where you lived?

After just a few hours sleep I awoke to the sound of the gales and lay there
waiting for the roof of the loft conversion to lift off (which it didn't!).
Set off for work a little earlier than usual that morning. Found first tree
down within 100 yards. Found another route and then , somewhat
optimistically , attempted to follow roads through Epping Forest but all
were blocked by fallen trees. Memories - slates and tiles on pavements,
roving roofers driving around 'available for business', telecom repairmen
drafted in from Ireland. There had been a lot of rain overnight and at 0700
the wind was still gusting strong enough to pick up these areas of standing
water and hurl the spray around. I recall that by 0900 conditions were much
calmer and people were emerging into the bright sunlight to survey the
scene - not unlike the reaction I had observed when finally driving into a
seriously snowbound Poole on a Sunday morning in February 1978.
You can see the Epping barograph trace here http://tinyurl.com/55s3h

Gavin, next time you are in Cambridge, try Galloway and Porter (bookshop)
which sells slightly damaged stock. I recently bought 'Eye on the
Hurricane - in the Eastern Counties' for £1.95.

All the best
--
George in Epping, West Essex (107m asl)
www.eppingweather.co.uk
www.winter1947.co.uk

Highest wind gusts at these stations
Portland Bill: 89.7mph, Thorney Island: 103mph, Jersey: 97mph
Heathrow: 76mph, Gatwick: 99mph, London Weather Cent 94mph
Shoeburyness: 100mph, Stansted: 75mph

Just a request here, did anyone on this ng
experience this? If so what was it like where you lived? I was living in
Australia at the time and missed it.

Gavin Staples.

Leaving a friend's house in Bembridge on the east of Isle of Wight
on the evening of 15th October 1987, I remarked that 'it was getting
a bit windy'. Needless to say, she hasn't let me forget those words
to this day.

I arrived at my parents in Wootton in a gale around 10 PM but it was
not until 2 AM that the wind became a real feature. Situated on a
ridge (tremendous view of the Solent), there was little to stop the
full force of the wind roaring past. Even the lulls were noisy!
In my notes, I estimated the mean speed to be in the order of
55 to 60kt (force 10-11) with gusts 80-85kt. The pressure dipped
to 960mb.

By daybreak, my Heath Robinson check rain gauge (a 5" plastic
funnel weighted down by a stone in a plant pot) had all but vanished,
and the bungalow lost 9 ridge tiles (less damage than that caused by
a lightning strike in May 2000, but that's another story).

Later that morning I took my Grandad on a convoluted drive (nothing
to do with drink!), thanks to a succession of diversions brought about
by downed trees, in order to survey the demise of Shanklin Pier.

What a sight! The scavengers were out on the beach with their metal
detectors as news spread that the amusement arcade had collapsed
into the sea (it wasn't all bad news). This same section also housed
the pier theatre. Some sections were left standing, but badly buckled
with masses of twisted metal, and these were eventually demolished.

Strips of spume had blown across the sea front road, as if the council
had gone mad with zebra crossings, and piles of wood from the pier
was being burned along the promenade, like beacons. Flotsam was
also being collected as souvenirs.

An unforgettable event, and then came 25th January 1990, but that's
yet another story!

Nigel (Romsey, Hampshire).

It definately was a 1 in 250... a real freak, and on another level to 1990,
'but' like I said, only in such a small area... extremel local (Kent,
Sussex). Other areas it was just a normal gale\storm, whatever.

A 1 in 250 year event for the UK? I don't think so.

"danny\(West Kent\)" wrote
in :

It definately was a 1 in 250... a real freak, and on another level to
1990, 'but' like I said, only in such a small area... extremel local
(Kent, Sussex). Other areas it was just a normal gale\storm, whatever.

I suppose it's hard to put a return period on these events as they're so few
and far between (but maybe not so over the Atlantic). I feel that the
1987/1999 storms have a 6-12 period of really intense windspeeds, and for
the 1987 storm, this coincided with the path over the UK. For "Lothar" it
seemed to coincide with the passage over Paris.

Conversely, October 30th 2000 was an interesting example of a near miss -
strong winds gusting 80mph were felt in Lincolnshire just as this 6-12
hour period of the strongest winds developed. I can't imagine what would
have happened if the path of the strongest winds occurred 6-12 hours earlier
across the Midlands. A North Sea oil rig measured sustained hurricane force
winds (74mph) as the system passed over it.

Cheers
Richard

udorHgh writes:
I added "Windy Friday" to the date on the batch sheet for the
process I was running.

Are you sure? Unless my memory is badly at fault, the storm was in the
early hours of Thursday.
--
John Hall

16 Oct 87 was definitely a Friday. Here's how to prove it. The day of
the week advances one day from one year to the next and two days if there's a
Leap Year day. 16 Oct 2004 was a Saturday. We have to go back 17 years, with
5 leap years, so the day of the week regresses 22 days, which is 3 weeks plus 1
day. So 16/10/87 is one day-of-the-week back from 16/10/2004, a Saturday. So
it was a Friday. Anyway, I'd been down the pub the previous evening, and
remember chatting outside in the warm rain briefly, and I never went to that
pub on a Wednesday, and still don't. (The Greyhound, Carshalton).

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.

In article ,
says...
16 Oct 87 was definitely a Friday. Here's how to prove it. The day of
the week advances one day from one year to the next and two days if there's a
Leap Year day. 16 Oct 2004 was a Saturday. We have to go back 17 years, with
5 leap years, so the day of the week regresses 22 days, which is 3 weeks plus 1
day. So 16/10/87 is one day-of-the-week back from 16/10/2004, a Saturday. So
it was a Friday. Anyway, I'd been down the pub the previous evening, and
remember chatting outside in the warm rain briefly, and I never went to that
pub on a Wednesday, and still don't. (The Greyhound, Carshalton).


I found it easier to click on the clock, set the year to 1987, month to
October check what day 16th was (a Friday) and click cancel. Quicker to
type too.

--
Alan LeHun:

On Sat, 13 Nov 2004 17:02:11 -0000, "Philip Eden"
philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom wrote:


"Martin Rowley" wrote in message
...
This might be of interest ...

http://www.metoffice.com/education/historic/1987.html

Thanks for alerting us to that link, Martin. Even a cursory look shows that
some text and several figures are identical to those in "The Great Storm of 15-16
October 1987", by Burt and Mansfield, Weather 43 (3), 1988, even to the
extent of including mention of the erroneous gust report of 106kn at
Gorleston which was quickly shown to be erroneous and was corrected (including a
redrawn map) in Weather a few months later.

Hmmm... I've often relied on Martin's link for what I thought was
accurate wind speed data about this event and now, I'm wondering how
reliable the rest of it is.

Do you (or does anyone) happen to know if the 10 minute mean wind
speed of 70 knots at Lee-on-the-Solent, mentioned in the Met Office
article, has been accepted officially and if it is in fact the
highest mainland 10 minute mean wind speed recorded in this event? I'd
particularly like to know as it's a clear hurricane force 12 at a low
level station on land - and it occurred just down the road from where
I now live.

Horror stories about the great storm of '87 still abound in this area
- but many people, including some National media, don't seem to
realise its full effects were felt this far West (including the Isle
of Wight).

Cheers

Dave
Fareham.

In article ,
"danny(West Kent)" writes:
It definately was a 1 in 250... a real freak, and on another level to 1990,
'but' like I said, only in such a small area... extremel local (Kent,
Sussex). Other areas it was just a normal gale\storm, whatever.

The area severely affected was considerably larger than that, including
at least Surrey and the eastern half of Hampshire.
--
John Hall
"Three o'clock is always too late or too early
for anything you want to do."
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

"George Booth" wrote in message
...

Gavin, next time you are in Cambridge, try Galloway and Porter (bookshop)
which sells slightly damaged stock. I recently bought 'Eye on the
Hurricane - in the Eastern Counties' for £1.95.

All the best
--
George in Epping, West Essex (107m asl)
www.eppingweather.co.uk
www.winter1947.co.uk

"George Booth" wrote in message
...

Gavin, next time you are in Cambridge, try Galloway and Porter (bookshop)
which sells slightly damaged stock. I recently bought 'Eye on the
Hurricane - in the Eastern Counties' for £1.95.

All the best
--
George in Epping, West Essex (107m asl)
www.eppingweather.co.uk
www.winter1947.co.uk




Thanks for your account of what happened George. I'll have a look in
Galloway and Porters. They are good in there.
Regards, Gavin.