I was a postgrad. student in Swansea at the time so did not experience the
effects of the storm itself. However, the previous evening I was making a rare
appearance at the microphone as stand-in forecaster on the local radio station,
Swansea Sound. I remember saying that it would become quite windy tomorrow
morning and noticing as I was speaking that the anemometer dial in front of me
was registering zero (i.e. less than 2 knots or so). At the time I thought
would anyone believe me as it is nearly calm now. Next day I thought how lucky
am I as the area was well outside the damage zone. Could the track have changed
overnight and brought the strongest winds further north and west?

I did feel sorry for a very tired looking Ian McGaskill being verbally savaged
by Michael Buerk on BBC News after Ian had been on shift for many hours.

Julian
Julian Mayes, Molesey, Surrey.

"Dave Ludlow" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 13 Nov 2004 17:02:11 -0000, "Philip Eden"
philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom wrote:

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?

Highest hourly means and gusts (in knots) we
Shoreham-by-Sea 74/98
Langdon Bay 56/94
Telecom Tower 54/94
Sheerness 63/93
Ashford 38/92
Herstmonceux 60/90
Thorney Island 59/90
Shoeburyness 56/87
Gatwick 34/86
Manston 58/86
Portland 55/86
Jersey apt 55/85

There were many power outages which left electrically
powered anemographs u/s ... among the most important
was Shoreham where the there was no power between
0400 and 0740, and Burt/Mansfield estimate gusts there
may have reached or exceeded 100kn between 04 and 05.

Highest 10-minute winds (not a complete list):
Royal Sovereign 75kn
Channel LV 70
Lee-on-Solent 70
Langdon Bay 62
Manston 61

Source: Burt & Mansfield, The Great Storm of 15-16
October 1987, Weather 43 (3), 1988.

Philip Eden

Alan LeHun wrote:
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.


Easier and quicker, maybe, but it lacks the style of Tudor's method. :-)

--
Howard Neil

In article ,
Philip Eden writes:
Highest hourly means and gusts (in knots) we
Shoreham-by-Sea 74/98
Langdon Bay 56/94
Telecom Tower 54/94
Sheerness 63/93
Ashford 38/92
Herstmonceux 60/90
Thorney Island 59/90
Shoeburyness 56/87
Gatwick 34/86
Manston 58/86
Portland 55/86
Jersey apt 55/85

It's interesting that stations well inland (Ashford and Gatwick) had
much lower mean speeds but that the peak gusts were very similar to
those at coastal stations.
--
John Hall "George the Third
Ought never to have occurred.
One can only wonder
At so grotesque a blunder." E.C.Bentley (1875-1956)

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 13:08:17 -0000, "Philip Eden"
philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom wrote:

"Dave Ludlow" wrote in message

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?

Thanks Philip. So, leaving aside the station(s) well offshore,

Highest hourly means and gusts (in knots) we
Shoreham-by-Sea 74/98
Langdon Bay 56/94

Highest 10-minute winds (not a complete list):
Royal Sovereign 75kn
Lee-on-Solent 70
Langdon Bay 62.

It looks like the highest 10 minute mean wind speeds probably occurred
on the Sussex coast and at least two places on the mainland recorded
mean wind speeds of hurricane force.

If we convert 10 minute means to to 1 minute mean wind speeds
("sustained" winds as used by the US National Hurricane Center) and
apply the 0.88 conversion factor used in the US (65kn -- 57kn), at
least one inland place (Herstmonceux) and most of the South Coast from
the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth eastwards probably experienced
hurricane force winds that night. That, for me, settles the
"hurricane" debate. From the layman's point of view, The Great Storm
was a hurricane.

Source: Burt & Mansfield, The Great Storm of 15-16
October 1987, Weather 43 (3), 1988.

Belatedly, I must try to get a copy...

--
Dave

"Philip Eden" philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom wrote in message
...

Langdon Bay 56/94

Bit tame for Langdon Bay :-)

Pity the Needles Battery CDL wasn't around then.

Jon.

"John Hall" wrote in message
...
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

...too right and the destruction I witnessed occurred in Dorset.

Jon.

"TudorHgh" wrote
Shame you had to perpetrate this bit of media mischief, because, as
the
dots at the end of the quote indicate, Fishy was cut off. He continued,
"Having said that, it is going to get very windy". It doesn't seem to
have
done him an awful lot of harm, but that bit of broadcasting history, at
least,
is bunk.

Even less harm, now he's retired. At teatime I heard an advert over the
car radio and pricked my ears up to the sound of a familiar voice. If it
wasn't Michael, he should sue.

It went something like: "Today, a lady rang and said she'd heard that a
hurricane was on the way. Well, if you're listening, I'm not bothered
about it a bit because I've got a new Worcester Bosch boiler
..........................."

Now he's free of the UKMO restrictions, he's obviously been busy gathering
a few extra pound notes to insulate him against the worst the weather can
throw at him.

- Tom.

danny(West Kent) wrote:
Remember waking up, looked outside, realised what was happening.
The thing that sticks in my mind with this storm, unlike other 'gales', was
the consistency of the strength of wind. The noise was horrific.
snip

In contrast, in this part of the world, it was the inconsistency of the
wind that I first noticed. I was awoken to the roaring of the wind but
this soon faded away. I looked out of the window to see the moon shining
brightly. After I got back into bed, the wind rose to a roar again. This
surging and dying of the wind continued for some time, each surge being
accompanied by the bang of next-door-neighbour's bedroom door.

A few days after the event, I was chatting to someone about it and he
said he'd slept through it. After dawn, when he finally began to
surface, he felt something tickling his face. He brushed it away but it
came back to tickle him again. This repeated for a while until he opened
his eyes to see that it was leaves brushing his face. These leaves were
attached to a tree which had crashed through his bedroom window.

Graham
Bracknell

"Graham P Davis" wrote in message
...
A few days after the event, I was chatting to someone about it and he
said he'd slept through it. After dawn, when he finally began to
surface, he felt something tickling his face. He brushed it away but it
came back to tickle him again. This repeated for a while until he opened
his eyes to see that it was leaves brushing his face. These leaves were
attached to a tree which had crashed through his bedroom window.

Graham
Bracknell


And he slept through that. My goodness!