Wales/Cymru Regional Weather Discussion - Dec 2023 onwards

[alr1970]

Holyhead Port is closed due to "infrastructure damage".

Most Monday ferry services cancelled as storm damage at Holyhead hits sailings to and from Dublin

WWW.IRISHTIMES.COM

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Two ferries have been at sea since Friday, ferry tracking websites show, as Ulysses remains docked in Dublin

Which scuppers my trip back to Manchester. I was so fixated on whether the trains would be running I forgot to check the ferry before turning in. Then remembered when I woke up but too late to cancel the taxi without a fee.

It's not clear the port will be open by tomorrow. Irish Ferries' James Joyce is moored in Cherbourg, that's quite a diversion. Ulysses is in Dublin but will presumably have to shift off the quay once W B Yeats arrives from France. Stena Estrid is anchored off Dun Laoghaire while Stena Vision does slow laps off Dundalk, I think she has normally been tied up in the harbour.

 

[andymusic]

 Sky Full 80-90mph I bet

[Sky Full]

 andymusic   Our newest and most enthusiastic member,  HarvSlugger, only lives a couple of miles away on the other side of the hill and his w/s recorded gusts of that strength so I’m sure we got them too.   Some people who don’t live in this area, or even in Wales, have implied that these claims are exaggerated but unless they were here to experience it they can’t possibly comment.  It’s typical that the media is mainly reporting the effects of this storm on England and yet it was Wales which was hit far harder.  

[StingJet]

& finally moderated to a NE'er F4-F6 , that has to be the longest protracted period of heavy winds from a single system I have experienced since moving here in 2000, whilst not the strongest of winds experienced,  with the incessant ferocity and direction, Darragh has made its mark.
Given the extended period of power outages many in Wales have had to endure, a testament to the severe impacts Darragh has had, quite exceptional.

[Loadsa2000]

 Sky Full

Roads were ok apart from going into St David's the road was closed and traffic was diverted past the runway. On the return home i took a gamble and it was reopened.

Checked the national power site this morning when i got up and they were saying nothing until 6pm. Just had an alert to say they have fixed the problem

[Wetterfrosch]

 Sky Full Thank you for your concern. I am ok and got away lightly as I am fairly sheltered from NW to N'lies. It was worse ahead of Darragh passing when southerly winds blew a piece of overlap cladding off my shed. Just as I thought it was all over first the telephone/internet went and 12 hours later finally the electricity. The latter was restored yesterday lunchtime although parts of the neighbouring villages are still in the dark now! Internet has only just returned an hour or so ago which I'm very pleased about. Feel just a bit peeved to have missed out on all the excitement on here and haven't had a chance to catch up to see how you all fared. Enjoy a few days of calm winter weather, nos da!

[Sky Full]

 Wetterfrosch.  Great to have you back again and glad to know you’re relatively unscathed.  Most of the excitement was to be had over on the Storm Darragh thread and it’ll take you a day to read it!  What a roller coaster the storm has been and many will have greatly enjoyed it, but personally I would have been happier if it never happened!  Very sad to know that two people have lost their lives due to the storm as far as we know.  The arguments will continue for a long time as to the place of this storm on the table of ‘worst ever’ storms but of course this is mostly determined by the personal experience of each individual depending upon where they live.

[wimblettben]

Just decided to post after a few days of paying attention to the after effects of the official Severe gale to Storm force winds. My parents didn't allow me to go up the road to measure wind speeds like I normally do as they were too worried about my personal safety so unfortunately I have no idea what the exact readings were though I still got a few 40 and 41mph gusts even during the day on Sunday when I was allowed to go back up the road again. That horrible loud emergency alert that came on my phone Friday night was like I was transported to America.

Anyway here are photos of the aftermath. Most damage I have ever personally witnessed from a wind storm.

 

 

 

 

[wimblettben]

I couldn't upload all the pictures on one post as there were too many and the server kept crashing so the next few posts are just going to contain the rest of the photos.

 

[wimblettben]

[chilly milly]

@wimblettben Thanks for the photos. Such a shame to see all those trees down. 

[HarvSlugger]

This tree has never had anything happen to it in any storm not even a branch.. now look

Even more impressive that I've had big storm when this tree was fully leaves and nothing happened to it

Powerful storm!

Edited December 10, 2024 by HarvSlugger

[Sky Full]

 wimblettben   Thanks for those images.  A sad but serious record of the damage suffered in many parts of Wales.  I guess I got away relatively lightly!   Oddly enough, there is a completely dead old ash tree along the lane from me which occasionally drops the odd twig in any light breeze and which I was certain would be blown over in this storm, but it’s still standing!

[Loadsa2000]

 

New Toilet block sunroof        Poor wonky caravan (feel sorry for them)

[Sky Full]

 Loadsa2000   Looks quite exposed there and St David would have been right in line for the strongest winds.  Will the site owners make the necessary repairs?  Hopefully there’s insurance to cover the repair of the roof and the caravan…

[Loadsa2000]

It is very exposed. Out of our front window we are looking at Carn Llidi and out the back can see St David's. we are literally minutes from Whitesands. 

[Marcus_surfer]

Nice chilly morning. Major clear up continues after storm Darragh. One of the most persistant storms ive seen in my lifetime and a very rare wind direction too, westerly then northerly. Huge trees down in our local parks. The sound of chainsaws continue to buzz down the gower.

[Loadsa2000]

Popular country park closes after more than 100 trees significantly damaged in storm - Wales Online

Craig-y-Nos Country Park in Bannau Brycheiniog

[Marcus_surfer]

 Loadsa2000 Awful horrible pictures , what a mess

[Sky Full]

Had to venture out to Tesco’s today and plain to see that the damage is widespread.  Many many trees ripped apart, leaning over or felled, broken branches and twigs littering the roads everywhere, several houses with ladders up already, fixing their roofs, and one barn I saw completely un-roofed and bare to the sky.    This was only on a short stretch of main road, and I hate to think what the smaller back lanes are like.  At least it seems that those with the right equipment (farmers, mainly) have served the community well by clearing all the debris from the main roads. 

[Wetterfrosch]

After a couple of sunny days and crisp, frosty nights we are now back under cloud cover and otherwise fairly nondescript weather. Likewise, my telephone/internet connection has this morning finally been fixed after it had only been working intermittently before due to the cable rubbing against a lower roof ridge, exasperated by storm Darragh. All in all, back to 'normal' then!

[snefnug]

Question for @Cambrian (and good to know you are back online).  I’ve given up visiting the winter thread as it’s getting quite silly now, as it does every year, with the hunt for snow.   I’m trying to be more pragmatic, after the recent two weather pastings in the last month or so, and planning ahead for possible adverse weather storms/rain/wind rather than snow.  Having seen that every expert in Scottish Power has been down putting the lines back up here,  and local foresters feeling any tree that is still standing that might impact a line, I’m confident that even allowing for a west/south west based adverse weather event (AWE’s) the lines will stay up.  However just to be on the safe side, for my more elderly clients, I’m throwing out a request for your seasonal winter advice.  Do you, with your knowledge, think that there might be incoming AWE’s between now and New Year?  

[Cambrian]

Thank you very much @snefnug

Looking at the indications for the next couple of weeks, the ECM model is a good go-to. 

Though the polar vortex is currently in prime position over northeast Canada for instigating a mobile Atlantic-driven pattern, I feel that this year it’s been reticent to stay put in any single place for more than 2-3 weeks at a time, and my hunch would be that this trend will continue. There’s some signs it will eventually move back east through Greenland to Svalbard by the new year.

The weekly mean pressure anomalies show this trend and a northwesterly pattern for 16-23 December and higher pressure than normal to our west for 23-30 December, which looks quite a mollified setup.

 

The trouble with the means is that they tend to average out the quick switches in flow and the cyclogenesis events that underpin storm development. 

The ECM control tends to follow the mean in spirit but captures the scope for single events. This is the 0z run for the next 15 days. 

 

Regular low pressure systems are coming around the corner over Hudson Bay, then moving east to near Iceland. One or two of them, notably around day 6 and then day 10, drop further south towards Scotland, and will probably introduce some colder air for a brief while, and scope for some windier weather, but the main action is kept well to the north, the jet stream running for the most part to the north of Scotland. 

During the second week, the jet stream becomes more undulated through the Atlantic, and so a tad weaker, consistent with the build in pressure to the west shown in the weeklies. The weeklies are off yesterday’s 0z run, the control run is today’s 0z, so there is good inter-run consistency.

So although impossible to ever rule anything out, going by the current output, I would be surprised if we were to see anything too extreme over the next couple of weeks but if I see anything that differs greatly from that current impression, I’ll post here again. 

[Missdolly]

The slightest downgrade people write off winter completely, I'm a frequent visitor on the mad thread but only as a spectator due to the negativity , I take it with a pinch of salt .  It's definitely been more seasonal this year bear in mind we're only 13 days winter , hopefully less stormy for the rest of it and some more snowy weather .

[snefnug]

 Cambrian Thank you!