Storm Ciarán

[daniel barber]

48 minutes ago, SizzlingHeat said:

Icon continues to take the low further south, indeed so far south now that the south coast will have light winds as the eye passes over. If the GFS 12z continues this south theme then we can start to draw more confidence and as a result I would imagine the warnings for wind would be removed tomorrow morning 

I agree. Maybe the amber area will be reduced further south to the immediate coasts. All depends on the track really. Really is a headache for the met as any deviation north or south will have a significant impact on the areas affected. 

Edited October 31, 2023 by daniel barber

[alexisj9]

Just checked the icon myself, yes it starts in the channel, but then yet again exits over east Anglia 

[FetchCB]

1 hour ago, Wivenswold said:

GFS appears to be the closest to current conditions with the low at 996mb, GFS had 995mb, ECM and ICON at 993mb. Small but possibly important detail. A slower intensification favours a more southerly track I assume.

I'm not sure you can infer anything from that although traditionally I believe lower intense depressions do track more southerly 

Met office in one of their videos said last night that the low pressure will be carried along by the jet stream and the rapid intensification happens when it exits the jet stream just South West of Ireland. 

I'm guessing the decoupling of the low pressure system from the Jet stream will both affect it's intensification and it's final track

[mike57]

1 hour ago, Mapantz said:

I cannot remember the last time my power was knocked out by a weather event.. I'd have to go right back to the 90's 

It very much depends on the supply infrastructure. Where we used to live was at the end of long 3.3kV overhead run with a transformer on a pole and further overhead runs at 240v to feed the houses. Every winter we would loose the power at some point often more than once, and on one occasion for nearly a week after a bad snow storm in 1990. I had (still have) an old diesel generator which was sufficent to keep essentials going. Where we live now is mainly underground, and power cuts are much rarer. Generator had one outing in anger last year, none so far this year.

A wider scale outage, caused by destruction of the high voltage transmission infrastructure is going to affect a much wider area, and is caused by a breakdown of the national grid. Supply capacity (or the ability to get it where its needed) is less than demand and unless swift action is taken everything breaks down. We have never had an event in the UK on the scale of the USA NE 2003 blackout, although we got very close a couple of years ago. Obviously if a major storm knocked out high voltage distribution over a wide area then a grid collapse could occur as its not then possible to get the power from the generation to the consumers.

Most weather related cuts tend to be local, the grid, by its nature has some resilience built in, although there have been concerns that cost cutting is reducing that. Storm Arwen caused some serious power cuts in the NE and Scotland, this was mainly trees going through local overhead lines.

[Fitzwis]

42 minutes ago, mountain shadow said:

Looks like the worst of the winds at high tide too. There will be major coastal flooding for sure on the main St.Helier - St.Aubin road.

High tide here on Thursday is at 08:40 at a height of 33.1ft or 10.1m. Considering our range goes up to almost 40ft or 12m it’s not the highest of tides. However, the storm surge, fierce winds, deep low pressure and predicted large swell will heighten this considerably and allow for increased tidal drop resistance which could be devastating for our coastal areas, partcularly Southern and Western coastlines. Not good. 

Edited October 31, 2023 by Fitzwis

[Fitzwis]

7 hours ago, Darren Vidamour said:

Well good luck with everything! I sure will be logging into the webcam on St Ouens Thursday just to get a idea of the impact of this storm. 

 

Fingers crossed the webcam holds fast as the images from it will be extraordinary, considering its location ...

Splashcam | Watersplash Jersey

WWW.WATERSPLASHJERSEY.COM

---

Check out the livestream of St. Ouen's Bay from the Watersplash.

 

[*Stormforce~beka*]

1 hour ago, Mike Machin said:

You're very fortunate. I live in a rural area near Winchester and the village has no mains gas. I have no fireplace or wood burner, so rely entirely on electricity and the power is usually lost for a few hours with even moderate gales, with trees and branches in remote areas bringing down the power cables. It can often be difficult for the engineers to find the break as can involve walking the length of the line across field, through woods and over ditches and streams to find the break and then it's difficult to bring in the materials to make the repair. The longest break here was ten days about a dozen years ago, and in fact power was lost only three days ago with a local lightening strike! You'd be amazed at just how cold and miserable it is with no heat, hot food or hot water for a few days.

Part of me is excited about the prospect of some interesting weather on Thursday and part of me is dreading the prospect of it being potentially cold and dark until after the weekend.

Where are you mate? I'm Harestock so quite lucky!

[James Maidstone]

1 hour ago, Liam Burge said:

True; I expect a further northward shift of the amber wind warning tomorrow and an introduction of an amber rain warning also tomorrow. I don't think any red warnings will be issued; if there was gonna be red warnings then the current amber warning would have been of a higher likelihood.

Why would there be an amber warning extension for winds northwards when the models are trending further South?

[Tamara]

There is no confidence at all that can be drawn from such a microscale area of the channel and the immediate coast where the tiniest adjustment makes such a stark differences of outcome. The latest Arpege & Arome have repeated their same track almost to a tee from this morning and the coast from the Isle of Wight eastwards still comes under gusts up to 80mph and 55mph to 65mph are found a bit further inland The GFS is fractionally further east of that and the 12z ICON is the most south & east of all. Representing the 'best case scenario'

But that 'best case scenario' which still has fairly strong winds for the far SE is, for now at least, far from guaranteed.

At the same time, parts of Western Cornwall are still at risk from the very strong winds that come around the south west flank of the low as it heads east/northeastwards across central southern parts.

There is some broad agreement that greater parts of inland most southern parts are, relatively speaking, less at risk compared to this time yesterday - but even then there is another good 24h to 30hrs modelling to come bearing in mind the most sensitive fine lines involved to rule out as much of inland southern parts as possible.

The highest level of confidence, unfortunately, is for the channel itself and its islands as well as NW France where there is no bandwidth of variation to escape the strongest winds.

[daveinSB]

Just now, James Maidstone said:

Why would there be an amber warning extension for winds northwards when the models are trending further South?

Part of the reason will be because despite individual movements between runs, the Metoffices blended forecast, with human input, has remained broadly the same throughout.

Combined with the fact that the fact that it's been very wet recently, the trees are in full leaf, and the storm will be at its peak in populated areas in the daytime.

It's much more than absolute data from individual model runs

[Chasbrown]

Regardless of the final track of the storm I just think it's impressive that the development was spotted days ago by the Met Office. 

[ANYWEATHER]

15 minutes ago, James Maidstone said:

Why would there be an amber warning extension for winds northwards when the models are trending further South?

It's definitely trending south today, but if it did slow down and not track so quickly northeast it would move a little further north than anticipated,  but for now the worst of the winds will be hitting northern France and the CIs 

[Weather-history]

 

[Metwatch]

Latest update from the MO. Subject to change of course in the next 24-36 hours.

Edit: Rainfall graphic to add as well.

Edited October 31, 2023 by Metwatch

[James Maidstone]

Listening to the deep dive from the Met Office and the reference to the rapid cyclogenisis only taking place a few hundred miles West of Cornwall tomorrow afternoon, how accurately can they actually model the track at this stage?  Does it increase the "error cone" substantially in comparison to a mature storm coming at us from distance?

[Ashme]

3 minutes ago, James Maidstone said:

Listening to the deep dive from the Met Office and the reference to the rapid cyclogenisis only taking place a few hundred miles West of Cornwall tomorrow afternoon, how accurately can they actually model the track at this stage?  Does it increase the "error cone" substantially in comparison to a mature storm coming at us from distance?

I'd imagine the track would look like a diablo at this stage??

[Thunders]

you think any school will close in the costal south east.  tbh i just want to have a day off

[Mapantz]

I note on the UKV that the wind direction during the strongest winds for here has moved from SSW/S to SSE. Not often that occurs, if it stays like that.

[ChannelThunder]

ECM in-line with the others. The low centre pretty much goes over the top of my head. Shame, this looked like a memorable event a couple of days ago, from a strong wind POV. 

[tight isobar]

No matter your interpretations - the ec 12z is a nudge concerningly northwards - with a partial drop pivot b4 a wash e- Anglian exit! - now casting  from around 2pm tomorrow is the order of the day!! Edit: a tightening of ISO’s as ciaran exits and formats a back sting from the wash into the Home Counties is a distinct possibility… keep watching!!!

Edited October 31, 2023 by tight isobar

[SummerShower]

7 minutes ago, ChannelThunder said:

ECM in-line with the others. The low centre pretty much goes over the top of my head. Shame, this looked like a memorable event a couple of days ago, from a strong wind POV. 

Its a shame really as the wind strength for the luckiest areas, ie the Channel and nw France looks on a par with Eunice in feb2022.  That was exciting.

[matty40s]

 

[Evening thunder]

It's funny how this part of Devon seems to get less strong storms than north and west France, and even the SE coast of England.

Only Eunice hit the south full on recently (though with amber not red warning here due to a little shelter from Dartmoor etc), otherwise they always seem to have taken the worst winds north of here, or south into the Channel/France over my meteorological memory covering the last couple of decades.

Edit: I guess 2014 saw a couple notable events which I wasn't here for (although the sea state/number of storms was the most exceptional, Wales saw a stronger wind event).

Perhaps a good thing with trees still pretty leafy, don't want to lose too many..

Edited October 31, 2023 by Evening thunder

[matty40s]

 

[Tom Montalbano]

Just posted the following in the "Things that tick you off" Thread":

News programmes presenting totally inaccurate information.

According to Sky News the flooding in Newry in N.Ireland, is due to Storm Ciarán.

For Pete's sake don't they check their facts, before reporting this nonsense?

Fortunately the BBC got it right, with the following;

"Newry businesses 'devastated' by flood ahead of Storm Ciarán."

Regards,

Tom Q. 

Edited October 31, 2023 by Tom Quintavalle