What's the Worst Ireland Could get ?

irish1967

Just looking at a picture and comment in another thread showing Ireland the most northerly country on earth with no snow and it just made me wonder.

What is the worst weather we could theoretically get here in Ireland ? Ok Australia had a giant cyclone. USA had a giant snow storm. What would our worst case scenario weather be. ( being somewhat realistic)

irish1967

Typing on my phone managed to spell WORST wrong in the title ! Grrrrr

Brenireland

irish1967 wrote: »

Typing on my phone managed to spell WORST wrong in the title ! Grrrrr

That's ok,your lucky,I was going to make a smart arshed comment with regards that gaff.

Pangea

We already have the worst weather , mild and wet for 80% of the year :pac:

Nice question though, I was wondering that myself, could we get a cyclone etc.
If you said a year or two ago that we would have had two extremely cold winters then you could call that unrealstic so who knows what the future holds!
Seems that hurricane force winds like yesturday/today and the cold blasts of winter from the arctic are about the "worst" you could hope for.

Mothman

Where were the hurricane force winds?

Pangea

Mothman wrote: »

Where were the hurricane force winds?

Donegal 140km winds (117km is hurricane force)

Mothman

Pangea wrote: »

Donegal 140km winds (117km is hurricane force)

Thats a gust.
The beaufort force is based on 10 minute means, so probably storm force 10, or perhaps force 11 which would give gusts to 140k

Pangea

Mothman wrote: »

Thats a gust.
The beaufort force is based on 10 minute means, so probably storm force 10, or perhaps force 11 which would give gusts to 140k

Oh ok, thanks for that. Hurricane force gusts then

irish1967

Biggest danger I always imagined was a tsunami (I know not weather). There's a lot of water to our west and I would imagine that's the direction whatever worst would come from.

fizzycyst

In 1893 Ireland experienced one of the worst storms ever to the country. It was a long time ago.....maybe we're due another one of these :eek:

http://www.irishweatheronline.com/weather-history/oidhche-na-gaoithe-moire-%E2%80%9Cthe-night-of-the-big-wind%E2%80%9D.html

Mayo Exile

Ireland could theoretically be struck by a hurricane (very small chance of it happening though) depending on how quick it would cross the Atlantic before it would inevitably change into an extra-tropical system. Depending on who you believe, Debbie moved up the west coast of Ireland as either a tropical cyclone or an extra-tropical feature on September 16 1961.

Wikipedia article

Boards thread.

morticia2

There was also Hurricane Charlie, wasn't there?? 1980s sometime?

Re tsunamis, there is some evidence that one struck the SW UK in the 1600s, made it as far inland as Gloucester.

There is also Cuimbre Vieja, a volcano on one of the Canary islands that is likely to lose one side of the volcano flank into the Atlantic the next time it erupts. It has been estimated that this could cause a tsunami of many hundreds of feet in the local area, should it all give way at once. A tsunami of 25 metres could make it as far as the US east coast, while a curving rebound could end up affecting us.

morticia2

Another thought; the eruption of the Laki fissure (Iceland, 17th century I think) resulted in the deaths of maybe 20000 people in the UK (mostly outdoor workers in the summer) from lung damage as a result of toxic gas inhalation.

Pangea

Mayo Exile wrote: »

Ireland could theoretically be struck by a hurricane

lol @ Theoretically ,of course we can!
Hurricane Stephen in St.Stephens Day 1998 was the last big one here in Donegal, it was a Beast.

F-Stop

I saw the title and assumed this was a post in politics.

thetonynator

Pangea wrote: »

lol @ Theoretically ,of course we can!
Hurricane Stephen in St.Stephens Day 1996 was the last big one here in Donegal, it was a Beast.

Are you sure that was an actual hurricane? not just hurricane winds, but an actual hurricane? I've never heard of it . . .

Pangea

thetonynator wrote: »

Are you sure that was an actual hurricane? not just hurricane winds, but an actual hurricane? I've never heard of it . . .

Its called Hurricane Stephen. Hurricane winds is a Hurricane, it affected North of the Country thats probably why you dont remember it.
My neighbour had to get his roof replaced!! Im sure there is some qualifed meteorologist here to say it wasnt a real hurricane though. :pac:
1998 I meant by the way.

je55ie

Delighted this thread was started , was going to ask this question myself several times but never did

thetonynator

Pangea wrote: »

Its called Hurricane Stephen. Hurricane winds is a Hurricane, it affected North of the Country thats probably why you dont remember it.
My neighbour had to get his roof replaced!! Im sure there is some qualifed meteorologist here to say it wasnt a real hurricane though. :pac:
1998 I meant by the way.

Doesn't it have to have a properly formed eye and be of tropical origin in the hurricane season to be a hurricane?

Afaik, hurricane force winds is only the definiton of the force, in the same way as gale or storm force is. It needs to have the correct structure to be a hurricane . . .but i could easily be wrong!

Mayo Exile

Pangea wrote: »

lol @ Theoretically ,of course we can!
Hurricane Stephen in St.Stephens Day 1998 was the last big one here in Donegal, it was a Beast.

Sorry, meant an actual hurricane (warm core, closed circulatory system) as opposed to an deep mid latitude depression which frequently produce wind gusts of hurricane force and over (74+ mph), especially in Donegal!

Pangea

If thats what an actual hurricane is then fair enough , dont know much about these things! But a lot of the things coming in off the atlantic have 'eyes and closed circulatory systems'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_windstorm

See the night of the big wind and the hurricane stephen mentioned in there ,they where cyclonic in nature.

Just seen that a hurricane is another name for a cyclone?
Whatever about the defintion , the 98 one was very bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQTJNmLCS9A&feature=related

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_Day_Storm

Speeds of 125mph/200km where recorded in Donegal

Harps

I remember that storm well, I lived on an island back then and we were totally cut off for 4 days with no electricity and no fresh food supply. Lots of structural damage as well, a brand new house near me had its roof completely blown off

I have no idea on the technical definition of a hurricane but I'd imagine theres a difference between an actual hurricane (tropical cyclone) and hurricane force 12 winds.

Mayo Exile

Pangea wrote: »

If thats what an actual hurricane is then fair enough , dont know much about these things! But a lot of the things coming in off the atlantic have 'eyes and closed circulatory systems'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_windstorm

See the night of the big wind and the hurricane stephen mentioned in there ,they where cyclonic in nature.

Just seen that a hurricane is another name for a cyclone?
Whatever about the defintion , the 98 one was very bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQTJNmLCS9A&feature=related

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_Day_Storm

Speeds of 125mph/200km where recorded in Donegal

Remember it too. Was in Murrisk (near Westport) that day. Absolutely cat for about 6 hours up to about 7pm if i remember rightly. Strangely though the electricity was only off for a few hours that day. Many hadn't power for up to a week.

Image of storm in thermal infra red at 1421 GMT that day.

Credit to: NERC Satellite Receiving Station, Dundee University, Scotland.
Link: http://www.sat.dundee.ac.uk/

mike65

IT WAS NOT A HURRICANE! Even down here that storm did plenty of damage including a bit to my house (lifted the front facing roof tiles at the edge) but it was not a hurricane, for a kick off it was mid winter and the Atlantic don't get hurricanes when the water falls below a certain temp - 26.5 °C and that to a depth of 50 m.

Use of the term Hurricane Stephen is entirely bogus, some crap on wiki.

irish1967

Ok. What about flooding? With all the new construction etc aren't we due a mega flood? Yeah I know we had serious flooding rural and urban in the not too distant past. But what about a country wide deluge ?

Here's one I remember.
http://wn.com/strabane_flood,_october_1987

Pangea

mike65 wrote: »

IT WAS NOT A HURRICANE! Even down here that storm did plenty of damage including a bit to my house (lifted the front facing roof tiles at the edge) but it was not a hurricane, for a kick off it was mid winter and the Atlantic don't get hurricanes when the water falls below a certain temp - 26.5 °C and that to a depth of 50 m.

Use of the term Hurricane Stephen is entirely bogus, some crap on wiki.

Its not from wiki that I got the term Hurricane Stephen , thats what it was called at the time.
Whatever it was , 200kms is bad, regardless what name comes with it.
The winds you got down south would have been nothng compared to what it was like up north.

thetonynator

mike65 wrote: »

IT WAS NOT A HURRICANE! Even down here that storm did plenty of damage including a bit to my house (lifted the front facing roof tiles at the edge) but it was not a hurricane, for a kick off it was mid winter and the Atlantic don't get hurricanes when the water falls below a certain temp - 26.5 °C and that to a depth of 50 m.

Use of the term Hurricane Stephen is entirely bogus, some crap on wiki.

Like hurricane Tomas a while back!

thetonynator

Pangea wrote: »

Its not from wiki that I got the term Hurricane Stephen , thats what it was called at the time.
Whatever it was , 200kms is bad, regardless what name comes with it.
The winds you got down south would have been nothng compared to what it was like up north.

Has owenc hacked your account by any chance??? :P

Pangea

thetonynator wrote: »

Has owenc hacked your account by any chance??? :P

Just telling it how it was . The hurricane or storm or whatever hit Donegal the worst. Waterford is a considerable distance away.

MiNdGaM3

I guess really we need to consider the timescale under which our extreme weather can occur.
Give a few hundred or thousand years and we could be ice locked and covered in snow for 9 months of the year or sufferring severe doughts and heat with occassional hurricanes.
As for nowadays, given the right conditions we could certainly have a winter much colder than 62/63, summers warmer and longer than July 06, and storms with winds at strong hurricane strength (not just gusts), they're all just very very unlikely!

pauldry

Some high pressure for a month with no weather.........oh wait that was January

gbee

Pangea wrote: »

Oh ok, thanks for that. Hurricane force gusts then

I fell into the same trap a two days ago myself ~ but hurricane force winds as in steady winds were reported. I did not mark or check the report, it's in the other thread on wind for the 4Th & 5th. And asaifk; confirmed in MT reports.

Birdnuts

Another cr%p summer:(

irish1967

Hmmm. What is the definition of 'sustained'. As in sustained wind speed. A minute? 2?

gbee

thetonynator wrote: »

Are you sure that was an actual hurricane? not just hurricane winds, but an actual hurricane? I've never heard of it . . .

We get lashed by hurricane remnants a lot, most would be classified as ex-tropical storms and would usually be weakening as they approach our coast. Occasional they intensify and we get a good Cat 1.

However, more damaging to us is the trough type storm like we've had for the last three days and it was a storm like this that that was the night of the big wind January 6 - January 7, 1839.

It produced winds estimated @ 115 Miles Per Hour [185 kmh] lashing the country in rolling wind storms or sometimes called horizontal tornadoes.

Another difference between a hurricane and a trough is the possibility of tornadoes on the ground. Almost all hurricanes will produce damaging tornadoes.

Duiske

morticia2 wrote: »

There was also Hurricane Charlie, wasn't there?? 1980s sometime?

Remember that quite well as it was on my birthday in 1986, Aug 25th. Have to say though, while it was extremely windy with a fair amount of damage, and lots of rain, i'm not sure if it warranted the hurricane tag.

It was back in the pre-internet days, and the first I heard about it coming was the headline in the Irish Press that afternoon, Hurricane Charlie Set To Strike Ireland.

Pretty wild, but Hurricane ?....I dunno.

eskimocat

I remember that storm/hurricane/whatever you want to call it!
It was unbelievable. The noise of the wind was serious, I remember people couldn't go out side, it was too dangerous with all the debris blowing around, or should I say hurling passed at a ferocious rate. Not that you could stay on your feet even if you did go out. Slates of the houses were deadly missiles. If it wasn't nailed down, or even if it was, it was blown around like it was a mere feather. Trees were bent right over and loads just snapped. The electricity was off for a good few days. I enjoyed toast made on the open fire, card games and walking around with candles mad exciting at the time... was a weather fanatic even then.

thetonynator

It was only called hurricane charlie because it had been hurricane charlie when it first formed, wasn't it?

mike65

Yes, it had been downgraded to "storm" but the media just can't resist exciting terms like Hurricane so Hurricane Charlie is was, until it past Ireland then it was "storm".

Su Campu

It only barely made Cat 1 status for a short period before weakening and transitioning well before reaching us, but for some reason people like to pretend we did actually get a hurricane. You don't see the States saying they got a hurricane if it had already weakened to a tropical storm by reaching land.

We don't get hurricanes in Ireland - full stop. We do occasionally get storms that have hurricane-force winds, but they're a totally different beast.

Iancar29

Tropical cyclones are classified into three main groups: tropical depressions, tropical storms, and a third group whose name depends on the region.
A tropical depression is an organized system of clouds and thunderstorms with a defined surface circulation and maximum sustained winds of less than 17 metres per second (33 knots, 38 mph, or 62 km/h). It has no eye, and does not typically have the spiral shape of more powerful storms.
A tropical storm is an organized system of strong thunderstorms with a defined surface circulation and maximum sustained winds between 17 and 33 meters per second (34 to 63 knots, 39 to 73 mph, or 62 to 117 km/h). At this point, the distinctive cyclonic shape starts to develop, though an eye is usually not present.


Eye of Typhoon Odessa, Pacific Ocean, August 1985


The term used to describe tropical cyclones with maximum sustained winds exceeding 33 meters per second (63 knots, 73 mph, or 117 km/h) varies depending on region of origin, as follows:

• hurricane in the North Atlantic Ocean, North Pacific Ocean east of the dateline, and the South Pacific Ocean east of 160°E
• typhoon in the Northwest Pacific Ocean west of the dateline
• severe tropical cyclone in the Southwest Pacific Ocean west of 160°E or Southeast Indian Ocean east of 90°E
• severe cyclonic storm in the North Indian Ocean
• tropical cyclone in the Southwest Indian Ocean

This is the intensity at which tropical cyclones tend to develop an eye, which is an area of relative calm surrounded by the strongest winds of the storm, in the eyewall. The strongest of these storms have had maximum sustained windspeeds recorded at 85 meters per second (165 knot, 190 mph, 305 km/h).
In other places in the world, hurricanes have been called Bagyo in the Philippines, Chubasco in Mexico, and Taino in Haiti.
Hurricanes are categorized on a 1-to-5 scale according to the strength of their winds, using the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. A Category 1 storm has the lowest wind speeds, while a Category 5 hurricane has the strongest. These are relative terms, because lower category storms can sometimes inflict greater damage than higher category storms, depending on where they strike and the particular hazards they bring. In fact, tropical storms can also produce significant damage and loss of life, mainly due to flooding.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center classifies hurricanes of Category 3 or above as Major Hurricanes. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center classifies typhoons with wind speeds of at least 150 mi/h (67 m/s or 241 km/h; a strong Category 4 storm) as Super Typhoons.
The definition of sustained winds recommended by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is that of a ten-minute average, and that definition is adopted by most countries. However, a few countries use different definitions: the United States, for example, defines sustained winds based on a 1-minute average wind measured at about 10 meters (33 ft) above the surface.
An extratropical cyclone is a storm that was once tropical in nature. However, once it passed over land or cool waters, its energy source changed from released heat from condensing water to the difference in temperature between air masses. From space, these storms resemble a comma. Extratropical cyclones still can be dangerous because their continuing low pressure causes powerful winds.
In the United Kingdom and Europe, some severe northeast Atlantic cyclonic depressions are referred to as "hurricanes," even though they rarely originate in the tropics. These European windstorms can generate hurricane-force windspeeds but are not given individual names. In British shipping forecasts, winds of force 12 on the Beaufort scale are described as "hurricane force".
There is also a polar counterpart to the tropical cyclone, called an arctic cyclone.



In my view , for uk and Ireland to recieve an actual hurricane we would need to 1. See the structure of a hurricane ( with eye ) , 2. For us to get substained wind speed in excess of 65mph. 3. For us to see one HELL of a lot of rain! .... And 4. Boards.ie to overload due to the amount of refresh buttons pressed! ...;)

nacho libre

The best Ireland could get is two foot of snow from a massive snow storm due to a battle ground scenario. This scenario was played out 78 years ago. Paddy1 remembers it well;)

Davaeo09

nacho libre wrote: »

The best Ireland could get is two foot of snow from a massive snow storm due to a battle ground scenario. This scenario was played out 78 years ago. Paddy1 remembers it well;)

I could live with that. Stock up on fuel for the fire and body

Deep Easterly

nacho libre wrote: »

This scenario was played out 78 years ago. Paddy1 remembers it well;)

I actually don't Nacho, I was only 5 at the time!

nacho libre

Deep Easterly wrote: »

I actually don't Nacho, I was only 5 at the time!

Discodog

Though not weather events the two biggest potential disasters could both be seismic.

1. A major eruption in Iceland with ash & a tsunami risk

2. A breakaway/collapse in the Canaries causing a tsunami.

The various inlets like Galway Bay would funnel a tsunami & the shore is very shallow on the Galway side.

The stopping of the Gulf Stream would also be pretty catastrophic.

NIALL D

^^
The stopping of the Gulf Stream would also be pretty catastrophic.


what would the actual outcome be if this happened ???

Discodog

NIALL D wrote: »

^^
The stopping of the Gulf Stream would also be pretty catastrophic.


what would the actual outcome be if this happened ???

We get weather like Canada. So maybe 6 months of snow every Winter.

The theory is that, as the Greenland Ice sheets melt, the fresh water reduces the salinity of the sea & stops the stream & it has happened before.

NIALL D

Discodog wrote: »

We get weather like Canada. So maybe 6 months of snow every Winter.

The theory is that, as the Greenland Ice sheets melt, the fresh water reduces the salinity of the sea & stops the stream & it has happened before.

o rite , cool , thanks

Joe Public

A return of the present government would be catastrophic, even worse than bad weather!

dsmythy

Discodog wrote: »

We get weather like Canada. So maybe 6 months of snow every Winter.

The theory is that, as the Greenland Ice sheets melt, the fresh water reduces the salinity of the sea & stops the stream & it has happened before.

Sorry i'm coming from an ignorant position here. Would the recreation of ice caps caused by a stalled Gulf Stream liven it back up again?