{"id":977,"date":"2013-10-30T15:41:07","date_gmt":"2013-10-30T15:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.holiday-weather.com\/news\/?p=977"},"modified":"2013-10-30T16:03:53","modified_gmt":"2013-10-30T16:03:53","slug":"977","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holiday-weather.com\/news\/977\/","title":{"rendered":"How powerful was Monday’s storm?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The storm that swept across southern parts of the UK caused widespread disruption and included a gust of almost 100mph, but how does it compare to previous storms?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the numbers<\/strong><\/p>\n

In terms of the severity of the winds, you don\u2019t have to go far back to find a more powerful storm than this \u2013 in\u00a0January 2012<\/a>\u00a0we saw winds of over 100mph in Edinburgh for example.<\/p>\n

There are two things that made this storm so significant. Firstly, the timing \u2013 arriving in October when the trees are in full leaf and therefore much more vulnerable to strong winds.<\/p>\n

Secondly the track of this storm was key. Along the northern and western coasts of Scotland and northern Ireland winds of 70-80mph are not that exceptional because they are on the more usual track of Atlantic storms.<\/p>\n

However, powerful Atlantic storms are seen much more rarely across southern parts of England and Wales \u2013 which means these areas are much more susceptible to strong winds.<\/p>\n

All this combined meant that the storm had a significant impact \u2013 with fallen trees causing the majority of disruption.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When did we last see a storm like this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

With that in mind, to find a similar storm we\u2019d have to look at those which affected southern parts of England at a time when leaves are still on the trees (likely to be autumn).<\/p>\n

To find a storm of similar strength that fits these criteria you\u2019d have to go back to\u00a027 October 2002<\/a>. That storm brought winds of similar, or higher speeds, affecting most of England and Wales, and leading to\u00a0widespread impacts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Where does Monday\u2019s storm rank in the longer term records?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are many different ways of comparing storms \u2013 from looking at the strongest gusts, to mean wind speeds, to the area affected or the severity of impacts.<\/p>\n

The Met Office National Climate Information Centre (NCIC) looked at autumn storms in southern England over the past 40 years, analysing the number of weather stations across the region which recorded a gust of 60 knots (69mph) or more for each storm.<\/p>\n

From this they put together the ranking below which suggests Monday\u2019s storm was within the top 10 most powerful autumn storms in southern England in the past 40 years.<\/p>\n

The storm of October 2002 comes top of this ranking \u2013 followed by the\u00a0\u2018Great Storm\u2019 of 16 October 1987<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mike Kendon, from the NCIC, said: \u201cThis is just one technique for analysing storms and doesn\u2019t necessarily tell us how severe an impact any particular storm had. On 16 October 1987, the maximum gusts we saw were much more powerful than those seen in 2002, and it was those very powerful winds \u2013 of up to 115mph \u2013 which caused the majority of the damage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat our analysis does tell us is that Monday\u2019s storm was certainly one of the most significant autumn storms for at least a decade in terms of its strength and its impacts \u2013 even if it\u2019s not on a par with some of the most powerful or damaging storms we have seen in the UK\u2019s historical records.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
DATE OF STORM<\/strong><\/td>\n\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

STATIONS WITH >69MPH GUST<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

27\/10\/2002<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

36<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

16\/10\/1987<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

28<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

28\/10\/1996<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

24<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

30\/10\/2000<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

21<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

11\/11\/1977<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

18<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

28\/10\/1989<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

18<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

28\/10\/2013<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

16<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

07\/09\/1974<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

14<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

24\/10\/1998<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

14<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

14\/11\/1977<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

13<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\u00a9 Met Office<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The storm that swept across southern parts of the UK caused widespread disruption and included a gust of almost 100mph, but how does it compare to previous storms? It\u2019s not just the numbers In terms of the severity of the winds, you don\u2019t have to go far back to find a more powerful storm than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"post_views_count":693,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holiday-weather.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holiday-weather.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holiday-weather.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holiday-weather.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holiday-weather.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=977"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.holiday-weather.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":981,"href":"https:\/\/www.holiday-weather.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977\/revisions\/981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holiday-weather.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holiday-weather.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holiday-weather.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}