Storm Isha, Amber ⚠️

[alexisj9]

39 minutes ago, sunnijim said:

A very unremarkable event in the SE both on coasts and inland.

Gusts no higher than 55mph to 60mph.

Amber  warning unnecessary , but given model projections understandable.

Data more widely over Northern Ireland the far North of England and Scitland shows  70mph to 80mph gusts recorded  in places .

Exposed headlands and mountain tops coming in with a couple of higher gusts.

Yeah cause normal for the pylons to ark with low winds, the where very gusty here, but no station to pick it up. Probably lea winds or something.

[Nick L]

Absolute joke from the Met Office. Another red warning issued in the dead of night for an event that was already happening.

[Frosty hollows]

I'm going to have a quick rant because I am fed up of seeing the same moans after an event like last night.

First of all,I hope everyone is safe. It's pretty obvious scooting around the forums that there's been a significant amount of damage overnight and some areas are more badly affected than others. However, it's been a pretty nationwide event, even imby where we got away relatively lightly.

However, I get really cheesed off with people who tell us this was a non event ( this is in general) and use it as an excuse to beat the models/metO/ other keen forcasters on here. Forecasting isn't an exact science and that's what makes it fun. The clue is in the name.

So, if you got away Scot free last night, pethaps be greatful it didn't pan out as forecast. There's a lot of upset, cold and worried people across the country about to start a clear up/ attempt to get to work/ check in on families. Just because it didn't happen in your back garden doesn't mean it didn't happen. Be greatful and maybe extend a little thought and sympathy to those who are facing a pretty crappy day.

[Dignity]

As someone who works in emergency response for a local authority, I can safely say that certainly was a busy night shift! 

Trees down all over Dundee, lot of debris around and lots of power cuts. Probably bit more damage to come in the light of day and people can assess how bad it's been.

I've spent most of the night doing safety check on vulnerable people so I'm off to my bed and hopefully wake up to good news that it's not been as bad as I think it may have been.

[stripeyfox]

7 minutes ago, Frosty hollows said:

I'm going to have a quick rant because I am fed up of seeing the same moans after an event like last night.

First of all,I hope everyone is safe. It's pretty obvious scooting around the forums that there's been a significant amount of damage overnight and some areas are more badly affected than others. However, it's been a pretty nationwide event, even imby where we got away relatively lightly.

However, I get really cheesed off with people who tell us this was a non event ( this is in general) and use it as an excuse to beat the models/metO/ other keen forcasters on here. Forecasting isn't an exact science and that's what makes it fun. The clue is in the name.

So, if you got away Scot free last night, pethaps be greatful it didn't pan out as forecast. There's a lot of upset, cold and worried people across the country about to start a clear up/ attempt to get to work/ check in on families. Just because it didn't happen in your back garden doesn't mean it didn't happen. Be greatful and maybe extend a little thought and sympathy to those who are facing a pretty crappy day.

This!

MetO are damned if they do and damned if they don't

 

It is a "warning", not a guarantee of bad weather.

 

Some people just can't get that into their heads!
 

[TammasinWhiskers]

9 minutes ago, Dignity said:

As someone who works in emergency response for a local authority, I can safely say that certainly was a busy night shift! 

Trees down all over Dundee, lot of debris around and lots of power cuts. Probably bit more damage to come in the light of day and people can assess how bad it's been.

I've spent most of the night doing safety check on vulnerable people so I'm off to my bed and hopefully wake up to good news that it's not been as bad as I think it may have been.

From someone in Cornwall, thank you for everything you did last night.

[ModestMention]

10 minutes ago, Frosty hollows said:

I'm going to have a quick rant because I am fed up of seeing the same moans after an event like last night.

First of all,I hope everyone is safe. It's pretty obvious scooting around the forums that there's been a significant amount of damage overnight and some areas are more badly affected than others. However, it's been a pretty nationwide event, even imby where we got away relatively lightly.

However, I get really cheesed off with people who tell us this was a non event ( this is in general) and use it as an excuse to beat the models/metO/ other keen forcasters on here. Forecasting isn't an exact science and that's what makes it fun. The clue is in the name.

So, if you got away Scot free last night, pethaps be greatful it didn't pan out as forecast. There's a lot of upset, cold and worried people across the country about to start a clear up/ attempt to get to work/ check in on families. Just because it didn't happen in your back garden doesn't mean it didn't happen. Be greatful and maybe extend a little thought and sympathy to those who are facing a pretty crappy day.

I agree, here we it wasn't as bad as the 2nd January for the maximum gust, but I can see over the country it was a far worse event.

Generally, and I'm not just talking about this forum everyone wants to be the Main Character, there are fewer and fewer people looking at the bigger picture; it all about what has happened to me, myself personally and other evidence to the contrary is ignored.  

[sunnijim]

34 minutes ago, alexisj9 said:

Yeah cause normal for the pylons to ark with low winds, the where very gusty here, but no station to pick it up. Probably lea winds or something.

Who said anything about low winds?

It was a wild and blustery night.

There is nothing wrong with cutting through the hyperbole  and stating facts; and they are facts, not just Wishful thinking that continues to try and back  a now defunct idea that gusts went higher than 60mph in the SE widely.

Models were about 10mph over the top.

Even Langdon bay only managed 59mph as its highest gust.

If anyone can produce evidence of higher gusts, fine but let's not  start shooting people down if they don't have the populer view of it being a remarkable event.

There was plenty of that here last night as members dared to say winds speeds were unremarkable etc.

Edited January 22 by sunnijim

[stripeyfox]

Exactly. There has been significant disruption to flights, trains and ferries. Bridges closed causing traffic delays. Trees down causing localised disruption and no doubt damage to property.

 

If all that had happened without the "unnecessary" warning the same people would be banging on about that!
 

[milkmaid]

no damage here a lot of the village is without power ,to be honest i think that with the direction of the wind, westerly  i am up a hill just under the brow of the hill I think that made it a bit better as we are on the east side of the brow ,i'm hoping people will only have slight damage and a thought to all the electric guys and others for keeping things going ,we ended up in a red ,

Edited January 22 by milkmaid

[Frosty hollows]

45 minutes ago, Dignity said:

As someone who works in emergency response for a local authority, I can safely say that certainly was a busy night shift! 

Trees down all over Dundee, lot of debris around and lots of power cuts. Probably bit more damage to come in the light of day and people can assess how bad it's been.

I've spent most of the night doing safety check on vulnerable people so I'm off to my bed and hopefully wake up to good news that it's not been as bad as I think it may have been.

Huge thanks to you, your colleagues and everyone else who was looking after us on a foul night.

[Snowyowl9]

Overall in general this turned out to be the biggest most widespread storm damaging etc in 10 years..

Winds whipped up here at 11pm so the first severe gale of the season..

Heard that 99mph gust over northunberland..

49 gusting upto 77mph just west of here is year a severe gale..

Edited January 22 by Snowyowl9

[DJ Fart]

Some salient points made here this morning.  It's often the way that people get swept up in the moment and want to be seen to be 'joining in' or experiencing the very worst when, in reality, they're not.  In a world where calm and reason doesn't get heard, people resort to hyperbole to get themselves noticed.  I was up working on a presentation for today until about 01:30 last night here in the far north of Essex.  I knew the worst had passed and it had probably topped out at around 55mph, yet you still have people on here talking about it as though it's the storm of '87 all over again!  I don't mean this to sound condascending, but I do understand it from a psychological point of view.  Same when it snows or there's a heatwave: "It's 47 degrees in my garden!"  No, it's not.  But nobody will respond if the same person says "It's 33 degreees in my garden".  

It's obvious the storm was extremely impactful for large parts of the country, and I hope everyone there is OK.  But it's also OK for your area to have got away with nothing more than a very stiff breeze.  

Anyway, pseudo-psycho analysis over.  I'm just glad my trains are OK this morning and I'm not going to be late!  (He says).

Edited January 22 by DJ Fart

[Frosty hollows]

53 minutes ago, ModestMention said:

I agree, here we it wasn't as bad as the 2nd January for the maximum gust, but I can see over the country it was a far worse event.

Generally, and I'm not just talking about this forum everyone wants to be the Main Character, there are fewer and fewer people looking at the bigger picture; it all about what has happened to me, myself personally and other evidence to the contrary is ignored.  

Same here. Mercifully Henk was very short lived, but he caused chaos.

I agree, there's a lot of "Told you it'd be better/ worse than it was". Maybe people need to remind themselves the warnings are for the emergency services to make plans and not for Joe Bloggs' opportunity to take pictures of the sea in hurricane force winds!

[rwtwm]

1 hour ago, Nick L said:

Absolute joke from the Met Office. Another red warning issued in the dead of night for an event that was already happening.

I can only assume the escalation to red is useful for on duty responders, and perhaps government/council funding rather than the wider public in this instance?

I agree it does seem mad to upgrade in the dead of night, but if it was only for Joanne Public checking the app, it seems unlikely they'd have bothered?

[Man With Beard]

27 minutes ago, Snowyowl9 said:

Overall in general this turned out to be the biggest most widespread storm damaging etc in 10 years..

Winds whipped up here at 11pm so the first severe gale of the season..

Heard that 99mph gust over northunberland..

49 gusting upto 77mph just west of here is year a severe gale..

Yes, it was quite something for a storm to be experienced nationwide at the same time.

In the end, the Met Office were closer than the models except maybe in the most northern areas. Certainly my preferred GFS was a bit patchy in its accuracy - yes, a few 65s/70s inland, but not as widely as they'd modelled. The south coast where I am was certainly a bit under, but it was still a useful storm.

A bit over hyped by the media though - the amount of coverage yesterday suggested something like Burns Day was on the cards, but in reality nothing like that was ever in the forecast away from Scotland.

[Alderc 2.0]

2 hours ago, Frosty hollows said:

I'm going to have a quick rant because I am fed up of seeing the same moans after an event like last night.

First of all,I hope everyone is safe. It's pretty obvious scooting around the forums that there's been a significant amount of damage overnight and some areas are more badly affected than others. However, it's been a pretty nationwide event, even imby where we got away relatively lightly.

However, I get really cheesed off with people who tell us this was a non event ( this is in general) and use it as an excuse to beat the models/metO/ other keen forcasters on here. Forecasting isn't an exact science and that's what makes it fun. The clue is in the name.

So, if you got away Scot free last night, pethaps be greatful it didn't pan out as forecast. There's a lot of upset, cold and worried people across the country about to start a clear up/ attempt to get to work/ check in on families. Just because it didn't happen in your back garden doesn't mean it didn't happen. Be greatful and maybe extend a little thought and sympathy to those who are facing a pretty crappy day.

Completely disagree, your statement is too broad, the storm was not severe for a large part of the heavily populated south where the amber was never needed and never should have been issued, not just my or my next door neighbours back garden. 
 

Further north conditions just about warranted the Amber warning, but I’ve still seen very few (I don’t think there were any) official gusts over 75mph for lowland stations away from exposed coasts. Clearly aviation and ferries where affected along with the trains but again this all very temporary and especially on train front their striking staff cause far more disruption than any weather event we’ve seen recently 

I maintain my position too many warnings are issued full stop and like yesterday they are often too aggressively worded and too widespread. Fortunately we have very few true life  threatening meteorological events in the UK however the number of warning suggests otherwise i maintain that a ‘cry wolf’ situation is in the making where people just won’t prepare for when something truly impactful and devastating comes along. 

 

[Alderc 2.0]

6 hours ago, alexisj9 said:

Im watching the electric pylon cables arking right opposite me, on the down my kids walk to school over, not sure how long I'm gonna have electric for.happened about three times in the last five minutes. And I don't think this is anywhere near over for us.

It’s not uncommon, used to live near power cables and only takes a foreign object like a branch, bin bag or scarf to get blow in the cabling adjoining the towers themselves to generate the arcing which is pretty scary! 

[Jo Farrow]

2 minutes ago, Alderc 2.0 said:

Completely disagree, your statement is too broad, the storm was not severe for a large part of the heavily populated south where the amber was never needed and never should have been issued, not just my or my next door neighbours back garden. 
 

Further north conditions just about warranted the Amber warning, but I’ve still seen very few (I don’t think there were any) official gusts over 75mph for lowland stations away from exposed coasts. Clearly aviation and ferries where affected along with the trains but again this all very temporary and especially on train front their lazy striking staff cause far more disruption than any weather event we’ve seen recently 

I maintain my position too many warnings are issued full stop and like yesterday they are often too aggressively worded and too widespread. Fortunately we have very few true life  threatening meteorological events in the UK however the number of warning suggests otherwise i maintain that a ‘cry wolf’ situation is in the making where people just won’t prepare for when something truly impactful and devastating comes along. 

 

"Further north conditions just about warranted the Amber warning, but I’ve still seen very few (I don’t think there were any) official gusts over 75mph for lowland stations away from exposed coasts." MO Warnings are about impacts. Our Amber was very much correct, here in Scotland

[RebsAbbo]

Well I for one am still waiting to make a cup of tea! Power lines definitely down (probably because they were only tied on with string in the first place) so impact is real. Power been off for over 12hrs now. Apparently Powergrid are sat in the local pub carpark for support…probably too windy still for someone to go up a pole yet?!

Can anyone make me a brew?

[TEITS]

Thankfully the winds were slightly less than forecasts/models predicted with gusts around 58mph.

Still i'm not going to moan about the Met O warnings. Shall leave that until we see warnings for 2cm of snowfall or when schools close whenever snow is forecasted and yet to fall!! 

[chapmanslade]

12 minutes ago, Alderc 2.0 said:

Completely disagree, your statement is too broad, the storm was not severe for a large part of the heavily populated south where the amber was never needed and never should have been issued, not just my or my next door neighbours back garden. 
 

Further north conditions just about warranted the Amber warning, but I’ve still seen very few (I don’t think there were any) official gusts over 75mph for lowland stations away from exposed coasts. Clearly aviation and ferries where affected along with the trains but again this all very temporary and especially on train front their lazy striking staff cause far more disruption than any weather event we’ve seen recently 

I maintain my position too many warnings are issued full stop and like yesterday they are often too aggressively worded and too widespread. Fortunately we have very few true life  threatening meteorological events in the UK however the number of warning suggests otherwise i maintain that a ‘cry wolf’ situation is in the making where people just won’t prepare for when something truly impactful and devastating comes along. 

 

The amber warning was completely appropriate for Wiltshire. About 90 minutes of severe conditions yesterday evening with power cuts and roads closed because of trees (A303 and A36)

That is EXACTLY why an amber warning was issued and was correct.

 

 

12 minutes ago, RebsAbbo said:

Well I for one am still waiting to make a cup of tea! Power lines definitely down (probably because they were only tied on with string in the first place) so impact is real. Power been off for over 12hrs now. Apparently Powergrid are sat in the local pub carpark for support…probably too windy still for someone to go up a pole yet?!

Can anyone make me a brew?

Probably waiting for the line to be confirmed safe before working

[Alderc 2.0]

7 minutes ago, chapmanslade said:

The amber warning was completely appropriate for Wiltshire. About 90 minutes of severe conditions yesterday evening with power cuts and roads closed because of trees (A303 and A36)

That is EXACTLY why an amber warning was issued and was correct.

 

 

Probably waiting for the line to be confirmed safe before working

If the Amber warning, or infact no warning had been issued at all last night  would you have done anything differently that could have resulted in you ended up in harms way or a life threatening situation? 

[ANYWEATHER]

13 minutes ago, Alderc 2.0 said:

If the Amber warning, or infact no warning had been issued at all last night  would you have done anything differently that could have resulted in you ended up in harms way or a life threatening situation? 

Common sense....!

[MisfitDog3]

I am based on the Surrey/Hants border. From 10.00pm through to 1.00am or so, conditions would have clearly warranted an amber warning. We were actually in a yellow warning zone (just) but my weather station recorded 10 gusts in excess of 70mph whilst I was monitoring it and there was a lot of peripheral damage in the area I could see from walking around with the dogs this morning. It is a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't for the Met Office but the storm last night was a major event for many areas, in the south as well and the north.