Storm Bert

[Jo Farrow]

Still cold up here compared to the balmy temps down south. The Winter Roads teams have been busy all day and it's going to be a tricky night here with slush everywhere

[Lauren]

Strongest winds so far now. I really hope our chimney holds up as it needs a bit of repair.

[Mapantz]

One thing I will say, the longevity of the wind is quite impressive.

Just had to go up to the top of my garden to check on the pond covers.. there's leaves covering every square inch. It looks like everyone's green waste bin has been emptied over the fence

Just had a gust of 51mph. 

Edited November 23, 2024 by Mapantz

[Sidsnake]

Daughter has just driven from East Grinstead to the other side of Tunbridge Wells... roads starting to go over with water I can think of at least two villages near me that are going to have problems with flooding very possibly 

[Evening thunder]

 Mapantz

Yeah the new wind forecasts often show gust ratio too high.. even for beaches with onshore wind. On Monday, Saunton Sands forecast is onshore, average 16mph, gusting to 41mph. Friday currently showing Exmouth SE (onshore) and 9mph gusting 34mph 

People doing wind sensitive sports/activities (e.g. kitesurfing, paragliding) may often think the gust forecast are too high, but in reality conditions are fine.. I've heard people commenting how forecasts have been off recently.

 

Regarding storm Bert, I'm slightly surprised the Met Office haven't issued an amber rain warning for overnight and tomorrow given the totals many models showed.. Most showed over 100mm on Dartmoor, and 70-90mm in some other areas.

ECM 00Z was about in the middle of the pack in terms of it's forecast, and 12Z on the right:

Bear in mind for the 12z chart some of the event has already happened combined with snow melt especially from Dartmoor and other hills around here.

Now, at 11pm several rain gauges on Dartmoor are around 90mm.. (the wettest actually 111.8mm though that may include some snow melt https://check-for-flooding.service.gov.uk/rainfall-station/46160), an ex-meteorologist living at Haytor Vale is posting on another forum that he's broken his nearly 22-year daily rainfall total record, two Devon rivers have already passed flood warning threshold, and all 3 of the high res models freely availiable on wxcharts.com show more than 100mm accumulating from 18Z (when Dartmoor had already seen 60-70mm)

If that doesn't warrant amber, what does? maybe they want to issue short notice ambers.

I don't know if some of these high res models can over do things a bit, but there does seem to be a reluctance to issue amber warnings sometimes... Ireland had red rain warnings and the totals we're forecast look higher than what they were modelled (though maybe a bit more spread out)

I know the warning is in the 'medium' impacts column, just below likelihood threshold for amber. Maybe they didn't have enough confidence in the locations of the highest impacts. GFS and also the UKV (maybe this is key) have shown somewhat lower totals on some runs, including tonight's 18Z, and if the front waves a bit more/is a bit more fragmented it won't quite be so bad. The problem with that is of course it's worse to not issue when they should have than the other way round.. Medium+ impacts may well happen somewhere, and while authorities understand the impact/likelihood matrix, most of the public don't, so it may appear they've been caught out and should have issued ambers. arguably a few such incidents have happened over the last year or two. Still, I know they often can't win and I wouldn't like to be an actual forecaster.

But plenty/most models show pretty high totals, the signs have been there for days, so if we get major impacts and only yellow warnings, I'm sorry, but I'll be on the side criticising them.

Edited November 23, 2024 by Evening thunder

[richie3846]

Incredible temperatures this morning. I've recorded 16.5c, Brize Norton 17.2c.

[Weather-history]

Peaked at 15.1°C overnight

 

[daveinSB]

Yellow wind warning now out for the SE quadrant - this period of increased gusts for our area has been very consistently modelled

Edited November 24, 2024 by daveinSB

[Lauren]

Well that was a terrible nights sleep with the wind howling down the chimney in our bedroom that kept waking us up. Dare I get up and actually explore to see what the two huge bangs were I heard in the night?

[Ciderwithrosie]

Certainly a wild night here and ongoing though it will ease later on today.

[matty40s]

I'm delaying my return South for a couple of hours, dont fancy driving through this set of squall lines...

 

[Dan76]

West Mids and Staffordshire took and absolute battering since midnight non stop, feels like the house is about to take off sideways super heavy rain but no thunder, guessing it’s all low top intense squall line  

[Kent Blizzard]

Bright and Sunny but very windy! Few trees down locally and a few fences gone.

It'll be a tense watch over the next few hours, especially for one neighbour who put up a load of Christmas lights and outside decorations yesterday! I doubt the 16ft inflatable santa will last long

[Atmogenic]

wasn't expecting this strong wind to be lasting for so long and as others have said, my sleep was also quite disturbed 

[Ryan H]

Having a power cut during the night.

[Metwatch]

Wasn't that windy when I went to bed just before midnight but I woke up at 7:30am and it sounded quite blustery. I'd probably estimate gusts were approaching 50mph. Also coincided with the warmest temperature of the warm sector at a balmy 16.6C, so the strong winds mixed the warmest air down at that time. Much calmer now and it's cooling down slowly:

[shunthebartlett92]

 Metwatch definitely around 50mph. I had some work in Leicester but didnt want to risk the drive from Bham at 7am. Plenty of localised flooding here

[The PIT]

Fairly quiet here overall but  some intense rain six to eight and a total of 36.2mm of rain in 24 hours.

[richie3846]

Strong gusts locally, 58mph Fairford and 55mph Brize. Plenty of rain too of course. Spot on with the yellow rain warning, due to the spread out accumulations not being too disruptive, and spot on with the yellow squally wind warning, what I'd expect for 50 to 60mph gusts inland. 

Glad I had a day off work today, though do feel sorry for my work mates battling the elements. 

[Penguin16]

Welsh council leader 'amazed' weather warning wasn't upgraded - as bridge 'completely washed away'

The council leader for Rhondda Cynon Taf has been holding a news conference this afternoon about the flooding in South Wales.

Andrew Morgan says around 200-300 commercial and residential properties have been affected by flooding in the area and that the rainfall has surpassed some records set by Strom Dennis in 2020.

He adds that the Abercynon Feeder Pipe Footbridge over the River Taff in South Wales, which was in the process of being rebuilt after being damaged during Dennis, has been washed away.

"It was completely washed away last night, so the scaffolding, the piers... everything has completely gone," he said.

Mr Morgan said the river was 23mm higher than it was during Storm Dennis, which was already "considerably higher than previous records" at the time.

Asked whether water levels were higher than he had expected, Mr Morgan said they "absolutely" had been.

 He added he was surprised there had only a yellow weather warning in place and this wasn't upgraded.

"I am amazed that it was only a yellow weather warning issued," he said. "We absolutely thought on Saturday we were preparing for the possibility of an amber warning."

[wimblettben]

We must be very sheltered from the rain here considering that in 32hrs the highest rainfall was around 34mm. Looks like pretty much everywhere else in Wales had had at least 40-80mm of rain from this system yet we only got into the mid 30s in mm.

Wind wise was what I expected though from an issued yellow warning with two 45.0mph gusts and one 47.1mph gust and a load in the mid 30s to low 40s. I think I may have missed the highest gust as I went down the hill for a bit and the farmers fences were whistling like crazy and the first power flashes began. Wouldn’t be surprised if had I still been up the road when it happened I would have recorded one rouge gust in the 50s mph.

There were quite a few power flashes around the area between 1AM and 5AM and we had power going on and off around this time.

[alexisj9]

still windy here, not so windy in town, my road is s bit of a wind tunnel. 

[Penguin16]

Sky news storm updates has a story/video about a women losing her umbrella to the wind. What in the absolute F

Edited November 24, 2024 by Penguin16

[Candice]

 Mapantz strangely enough, until this weekend I’d have agreed with you.  But, having monitored the forecast gust speeds for my location against actual hour by hour over the 2 days the Met have been within 2-3 mph which is pretty amazing.  GFS on the other hand are absolutely dire, mostly 20mph over the top - showed 67mph as highest gust today, whereas in reality top gust was 48mph.  I’ve never trusted the GFS gust speeds tho.

[minus10]

Incredible that this front ...or two cold fronts according to the fax...have been practically stationary in this position all day..

..rain totals under them must be racking up...gusty here all day with bits and pieces of rain...not the nicest of days but remarkably mild given the strength of the wind...