...Hurricane of 1927

nacho libre

Was it a hurricane or is that just hyperbole on the part of local people? If it was a Hurricane. I wonder what the highest wind speeds recorded were. I presume there are official records for this event:o

Deep Easterly

Any idea of the time of year or month that this storm occured that the natives speak of Nacho? Might get an idea of the mean strength of the storm (if it did occur) from the the Wetterzentral historic chart link:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsreaeur.html

Edit: Wrong link

This one if for the 1880-1949 period:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/tkslpar2.htm

nacho libre

It was in November 1927. I think several fishermen were killed during it.

Deep Easterly

From what I can see from the Nov 1927 charts, the first half of the month, and partiularly the opening days were quite windy:



Though probably not a hurricane, that chart looks like sustained strong winds would have affected all coasts of Ireland.

Very unstable northerly on the 6th:



Potential for some short lived severe squall from that set up. It could be a case that memory has distorted time, though I think I have read about a November storm that killed fishermen either in Donegal or Galway Bay. Can't be sure though and maybe 2 entirely seperate times we are talking about.

StratoQ

Hi folks

Of course we dont get hurricanes in Ireland. But I suspect you are referring to the major storm which hit the west coast on October 28th 1927.

There is an excellent account of this in the Oct 2007 Monthly Weather Bulletin on pg 16 (last page).

http://www.met.ie/climate/monthlyBulletins/oct07MWB_lores.pdf

A total of 45 lives were lost at sea along the western seaboard. The depression deepened to 976 hPa close to the Mayo coast. There was a strong sea surge after days of SW winds and then the winds veered NW gale. I can imagine the combination of sea surge from the SW and winds from the NW would create very difficult conditions. (a bit like the Fastnet Disaster in that respect).

Deep Easterly

StratoQ wrote: »

Hi folks

Of course we dont get hurricanes in Ireland. But I suspect you are referring to the major storm which hit the west coast on October 28th 1927.

There is an excellent account of this in the Oct 2007 Monthly Weather Bulletin on pg 16 (last page).

http://www.met.ie/climate/monthlyBulletins/oct07MWB_lores.pdf

A total of 45 lives were lost at sea along the western seaboard. The depression deepened to 976 hPa close to the Mayo coast. There was a strong sea surge after days of SW winds and then the winds veered NW gale. I can imagine the combination of sea surge from the SW and winds from the NW would create very difficult conditions. (a bit like the Fastnet Disaster in that respect).

Nice one StratoQ. A horrendous amount of lives lost during that storm.

nacho libre

The winds eased before they swung around to the north west:( That's obviously what caught all those poor sods out.:(
Thanks for the link StratoQ.

M.T. Cranium

I had a look at tracks for hurricanes in 1927 and actually there was a storm of tropical origins which moved across northern parts of Ireland on the night of October 1-2, 1927. This had been a hurricane for several days between Bermuda and the outer Grand Banks to the central Atlantic, then it became extra-tropical on the first and from the wetterzentrale maps the track seems to be close to Malin Head from the WSW. Perhaps you could check news reports to see what if anything happened with this storm. The one you are talking about on October 28 may well have been the "hurricane" that is remembered, but it was not the remnant of an Atlantic tropical storm according to the map for 1927.

CrowdedHouse

I recall reading/hearing about 'The Cleggan Disaster' when visiting the area.It occurred in October 1927.25 fishermen were lost from the Cleggan/Inishbofin area of Co.Galway.

(EDIT:A quick Google 28 October 1927)