Study of powerful windstorms in Western Europe over the last 400 years

[Hugo_HK]

I wanted to study and draw a list of the greatest storms to affect Western Europe since 1600. 

 

Overall, the first thing was to set a region of study. In general, I have studied the area ranging from Portugal to Northern England, including France, the Low Countries and Germany (but not Denmark or anything to its North), and I have left out Ireland and Scotland which are more frequently subject to powerful storms due to their location further North / West into the Atlantic. 

 

The second item to decide on was the threshold for what would qualify as powerful storm. In general, I would expect a storm to make the list if winds reached 12Bft on at least some areas of the coastline, with widespread 11Bft, and locally 11Bft inland with widespread 10Bft. I included 2014 despite there having been no huge single storm that year, because of the extraordinary series of storms and their remarkable effects on the coastline.

 

I have ordered the storms in reverse chronological order. In bold are what I consider to be the 'Great storms': truly exceptional phenomena. For older storms from the 18th century and before, I draw on whatever records I can, for example folk stories or official government / church records of the time. 

 

 

Some storms that I am still hesitating on: February 1850, December 1929 (the last one didn't quite reach the threshold, but the series of storms over 4 days in England was truly epic)

 

Findings: 

 

• It is uncertain whether there is a trend in these types of events, but the 20th century may have had less of such storms vs prior centuries
• On average, powerful storms affect Western Europe every ten years, although there are periods of lower activity and periods of higher activity
• There were 9 such storms in the 20th century, 12 in the 19th century, 14 in the 18th century, and 11 in the 17th century. Great storm events (in bold) occurred 5 times in the 20th century, 3 times in the 19th century, 7 times in the 18th century (a very stormy century, particularly the first half of it or so) and 5 times in the 17th century
• Storm distribution:  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hugo_HK]

I have now added November 1824 storm for the South of England and December 1720 for the North, which both caused severe coastal flooding. I also added the storm of January 1784 in the SW of France which caused great damage in La Rochelle and Bordeaux areas. 

 

by the way, for those of you that live down in Somerset or not too far, there will be an exhibition on 'the great gale of 1824' for its 200th anniversary just in November this year. 

 

a good animation on it by the environment agency:

 

 

link to exhibition:

 

Great Gale | Dorset Coast Forum

WWW.DORSETCOAST.COM

 

 

Note: I also removed the events of years 1671 in Northern France (likely a supercell storm rather than a classic windstorm) and December 1663 in Southern England (major surge up the Thames but no records of strong winds so it was likely due to other factors).

 

 

[Hugo_HK]

 

Storm distribution by decade: I was silly and made the axis the wrong way around (so it starts in 2020s and goes back to 1600s). There was clearly a resurgence of strong storms in the early 18th century, while the distribution was pretty even outside of this period (sometimes a couple of decades without storms in the early 1900s, mid 17th century, and just 1 in 3 decades in the mid 17th century.

 

Edited October 31 by Hugo_HK

[Metwatch]

Also mentioned in the worst events thread, but Storm Ciaran (Start of November 2023) and Storm Eunice (mid February 2022) definitely deserve to be mentioned. Ciaran had a supercell ravage through Jersey with a strong tornado, and Eunice had a red wind warning by the Met Office. Another is Storm Arwen, November 2021 for northern / eastern areas.

Eunice:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metofficegovuk/pdf/weather/learn-about/uk-past-events/interesting/2022/2022_01_storms_dudley_eunice_franklin_r1.pdf

Storm Eunice - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Ciaran:

Storm Ciarán - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metofficegovuk/pdf/weather/learn-about/uk-past-events/interesting/2023/2023_09_storm_ciaran_2.pdf

 

 

low‐level wind jets Storm Ciaran 2023.pdf Jersey tornado storm Ciaran.pdf

Edited October 31 by Metwatch

[Hugo_HK]

I don't think they do, they wouldn't make the cut in my opinion, or at least that is my original impression.

 

Eunice certainly comes close, but outside of the Needles, which is VERY exposed, the gusts were around 80mph on the coast and 70mph inland... I would expect widespread 90-100mph gusts on the coast and 80mph inland to make the cut basically. 

 

Storm Ciaran... the problem with French windspeed values is that Meteofrance doesn't respect WMO guidelines of measuring a gust as avg speed over 3 seconds: it measures gusts over half a second or even a quarter of a second in some places. So coastal areas of Britanny recorded about 180km/h or even 200km/h, but over a quarter of a second. This would be downgraded to around 100mph based on WMO standards of 3s measurements (isn't that the max recorded at Jersey for eg?). There was also a tornado over the Channel Islands of course, but that's quite different.

 

Anyway will take a look tomorrow, but my gut feel so far (working on memory of these two events) is that they were a notch lower than the threshold. Naturally it's hard to tell weather some of these older storms may have been less strong than the records show... but the fact is that Eunice didn't cause widespread mass structural damage etc - nowhere near to Burns day storm etc...

 

[WYorksWeather]

 Hugo_HK For Storm Ciaran, I would make the argument more on the basis of the Jersey tornado. This was ranked as the most intense tornado to hit the British Isles in over 70 years.

[Hugo_HK]

Yes, however that is but a detail of the overall storm... In general I look at the wider strength of the storm rather than localised tornado phenomena, and I look at severe weather outbreaks separately

 

To elaborate further, I feel like there are a decent amount of windstorms for which max winds reach about 90-100mph on the coast, but there does tend to be a barrier at that level and very few have stronger winds than those thresholds.

 

In the 90-100mph max gusts since 2000 in England & Wales, we have October 2002, January 2005, January 2007, I think in the fall of 2013, again in February 2014, and as you point out, again in feb 2022 and November 2023. 

In the end that is not exceptional enough a such storms would possibly not have made it to the record keeping of the 18th and 19th centuries (unless coupled with spring tides for example). 

 

By the way, does anyone remember the name of the main storm in February 2014? I seem to remember some 100mph gusts in Wales that year? 

 

Also, reading about Jan 2007 storm, it may make sense to include that one as reanalysis apparently puts it at 12Bft strength 

[A Face like Thunder]

2 hours ago, Hugo_HK said:

Also, reading about Jan 2007 storm, it may make sense to include that one as reanalysis apparently puts it at 12Bft strength 

Fully agreed. Philip Eden has the gale of 18th January 2007 as one of two case studies in his book 'Great British Weather Disasters'. He points out that although the max gusts were (only) 84mph (Crosby and Squires Gate, Lancs), damaging gusts of 70-80mph were reported widely at inland sites throughout England, and I can confirm this here in South Cheshire. The other gale studied in detail by Eden was on 26th January 1884. 

[WYorksWeather]

 Hugo_HK It would have been recorded I think based on the tornado, but as you say an interesting case as to whether tornado outbreaks can be included. I think of the recent ones Storm Ciaran is the most likely to merit inclusion. As to wider wind damage, I think there were 21 deaths and numerous power outages, widespread property damage etc, but it depends how widespread.

Edited November 2 by WYorksWeather

[iand61]

 A Face like Thunder  up there with the worst gales I have seen, maybe not quite on the level of the Burns day storm or the early Jan 1976 one but it seemed worse with it being in the middle of the day.

straight westerly in this part of east Lancs and for a couple of hours early afternoon it was trying its hardest to lift the roof of the factory I was working in.

Thankfully it didn’t manage it but a couple of lads had a lucky escape when it completely blew a full height roller shutter in and had it flailing about like a sail and there was nothing we could do to stop it until things calmed down a bit around dusk.