knightstorm

We don't get Hurricane's in the UK but we get European Wind Storms, or as some people preffer to call them Atlantic Superstorms! Classic examples of these are The Great Storms of 1703 and 1987, aswell as the storms which struck last January. EWS's are often wrongly labelled hurricane's purely because they occasionally produce hurricane force winds, but as they normally occur during the winter months they arn't of tropical nature and don't produce anything like the amount of rainfull a real hurricane would! The storms we get over here are minor compared with Florida hurricane's where sea temperatures are ideal for the formation of tropical storms at over 25centregrade. Most EWS's produce sustained speeds of 40 to 60mph, hurricane's produce sustained speeds of 75mph and EWS's produce maximum gusts of typically around 120mph a hurricane's gusts can regularly exceed 150mph and sometimes 200mph. EWS's also have no distinct eye formation, despite having a simular cyclonic spinning behavior. The worst storms in the world are normally found in the Pacific where they are known as Typhoons, did you know that the world record for a gust produced by a tropical storm was during 1997's Super Typhoon Paka when an unofficial gust was meassured at 240mph, this storm formed 2 seperate eyes. I bet that storm Paka hell of a punch, haha get it!!

Yeah I did that's what I was reffering to in my last comment!

That's a good point he makes about the sea temperatures around the UK, so therefore there is no way it could have been a hurricane but an exceptional storm it certainly was! I mean he may aswell have said there was a hurricane comming if he knew about it, because of course the winds at times were of hurricane strength and caused equally as much damage as any hurricane would have done anyway, the only major differance a hurricane would have had would be that there would have been a greater risk of flooding because of the huge amounts of rain a hurricane can dump! Poor old Michael must be banging his head against a wall by now, just cause of the amount of stick he recieved for that much edited forecast!

:huh: Hows next week shaping up?

Yeah I seem to remember that aswell, it was quite warm and sunny. When you think of storms you expect the sky to be grey or dark or there to be heavy rain aswell, but this wasn't the case in 02 if it wernt for the severe winds it would have been a very pleasant autumn day! :huh:

2000 storm was very much the south, particularly the south east! Not sure about 2002 I think it was abit more widespread, but still generally south of Birmingham, I think the south west suffered worse on this occasion though! B)

These photos are incredible! B)

It's weird what people forget, for example everyone remembers the 76 heatwave but what about 95!? Anyone who's old enougth that thinks of snow thinks of 63 but what about 1991!?

Was that 2005 storm the one which produced 125mph winds, and made the news the next morning?? I think I remember that one, cause it got quite windy down south aswell, but nothing like that bad I would say we experienced 50-60mph gusts!

Everyone seems to remember 87 for obvious reasons i.e, it wasn't properly predicted and it caused more chaos in just a few hours than any other British weather event in living memory, people also remember than Burn's Day Storm in 1990 and some also mention the Christmas and Nu Year storms of 97/98, and more recently the massive storms that hit northern Europe and the UK last January. But who remembers these? 1996 - Tail end of Hurricane Lilly brings 80mph winds to Southern England! 2000 - Night of 29th/30th October brought most fearsome autumnul storm since 87 when 90mph plus winds hit South-East accompanied by heavy rain, flood chaos followed! 2002 - Sunday 27th October, people woke up for breakfast time to high winds across the whole of Southern England and Wales, 85mph is recorded in London, and 100mph is recorded in Bristol! You people have short memories, the one I'll never forget was the 29th Oct 2000 storm it was the night after my 14th birthday and I have never seen wind like it my bedroom window was shaking and I thought it was gonna smash in, the noise sounded like an express train rushing right past me, the rain was so heavy aswell, I was terryfied and didn't think I would live to see the next day let alone 15!!

So if the radio forecasts knew it was comming, why didnt they contact the BBC Weather Centre aswell to alert them?

Yeah sorry I was abit slow to catch up with you lot on this topic, it's just that I'm new on here so bare with me! Anyways yes so some of you did see the programme on ITV, I thought it was quite good. However to say the system was bigger and stronger than a hurricane is stretching things abit, a hurricane can grow to as much as 500 miles in diametre for example Hurricane Mitch was so large it could have covered the whole of the UK, the 87 storm only really affected the southern quarter. Also hurricane's on the baeufort scale is defined as a wind which has sustained speeds of 74mph, the 87 storm generally only produced sustained speeds of around 50mph, it was the gusts which where incredible some areas recorded gusts in excess of 110mph which is equivelent to gusts in a category 3 hurricane! Also found it ammusing how when the windmill stopped spinning, that the wind suddenly stoped and the sun came up wasnt this a little bit of a quick recline!? Never realised however that it was decided that power should be turned off in London, I just thought the storm knocked out the power in the city!

As you all probably know, it's just passed the 20th anniversary of The Great Storm of 1987 or as it is often remembered the hurricane, despite the fact it wasn't! Did anyone see that excellent reconstruction documentary on ITV on Tuesday called Britains Biggest Storm? I found watching it very intense as the reconstructions really displayed the violent power of the wind. I was not even a year old when this happened and I slept right through it, so obviously I can't remember it, thank god I cant or I'd probably have been terryfied of wind for the rest of my life. I thought it was an excellent programme to dedicate the anniversary, if anyone else saw it and wants to discuss the programme and the storm in detail for those of you who are old enougth to remember it, than please write back with your thoughts and memories.