The Great Storm of Wednesday 12/02/2014

ch750536

whitebriar wrote: »

This may sound silly,but have you reported it?
I spoke to someone today who with their neighbours lost power 2 days ago,none reported it.I did today and the esb were not aware of it.
Consequently they won't have power now for another 48hrs,they are that far down the list.There are crews in the area but they have moved on.
Honestly I said,do they think the Esb are telepathic?

I can't believe the stupidity of some people

We tried to report it a few times but they were not taking any new reports. System was simply overloaded. Power & water came back on last night so kids back to school today.

Henwin

Wohhoooooooo!
The power is back for the first time since the storm here in north kerry. The house was so cold, had to throw out the contents of the freezer, milk the cows by hand and by candlelight and get ready for work in the dark, had no internet access for the week also.
It was some storm, seen trampolines flying onto the roads, trees falling, and roofs colapsing was some sight.

red_bairn

Henwin wrote: »

Wohhoooooooo!
The power is back for the first time since the storm here in north kerry. The house was so cold, had to throw out the contents of the freezer, milk the cows by hand and by candlelight and get ready for work in the dark, had no internet access for the week also.
It was some storm, seen trampolines flying onto the roads, trees falling, and roofs colapsing was some sight.

Ah sure isn't it great to work by the old fashioned way! :pac:

Oneiric 3

whitebriar wrote: »

Honestly I said,do they think the Esb are telepathic?

They seem telepathic enough when sending out the bills. Betcha every house in the country will receive them bang on time.

Met.ie have put up nice little PDF report on this storm on their website.

http://www.met.ie/UserMediaUpl/file/Storm12Feb14.pdf

Sustained hurricane force at Mace Head, 86 kt gust at Shannon. A little surprised at the unexceptional high gust speeds elsewhere considering the extent of damage.

Red Pepper

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

They seem telepathic enough when sending out the bills.

Classic!

Henwin

red_bairn wrote: »

Ah sure isn't it great to work by the old fashioned way! :pac:

Ya I loved it, obviously there are disadvantages when it comes to having no power but it was so nice to come in from the cows in the evening, light a few candles, relax and chat. we had the radio on the phone and I think its so much better than tvs and internet. I propose that one day every month we shud turn off all lights and electrical gadgets, sit and talk to your families and relax. its really soothing sitting down with candles lighting.

On a side note, we tried reporting it on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday but couldnt get through. I rang at 7 Saturday morning and finally got through. they never knew of our fault, there are only 20 houses on our line but 4 of them are dairy farmers so i was surprised they hadnt reported it, maybe they couldnt get through. So they said it wud be fixed saturday evening, then they said sunday evening but wasnt.
So this morning i drove around and met an ESB crew in another area and asked them nicely to come over to fix our broken line if they got a chance, he took my details and said they were crazy busy, they were over at 12.30 and we had power at 1 o clock,. Sound lads they were. Great work they do.

mickmackey1

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Met.ie have put up nice little PDF report on this storm on their website.

http://www.met.ie/UserMediaUpl/file/Storm12Feb14.pdf

Sustained hurricane force at Mace Head, 86 kt gust at Shannon. A little surprised at the unexceptional high gust speeds elsewhere considering the extent of damage.

Interesting. I wonder if the saturated ground conditions had anything to do with the number of trees uprooted, we can see Fermoy had a max 10-min speed of only 38kt but 270 trees knocked on the golf course there And certainly around here also, way more trees down than in '97.

I'm thinking of getting this weather station, hope the experts approve of it... altho it will probably be 50 years before we see something similar round these parts

StratoQ

omicron wrote: »

I think there might be a fault though, I remember seeing somewhere that its at 2m not 10m, and it stopped reporting wind for an hour and then when it came back it had jumped from 115 to 128, so not sure how reliable it is.

Just for reference, the highest gust there during any other storm this winter was 93km/hr I think.

I run the Kilkennyweather.com weather station and have to put right the wrong implied here.

The poster should have been well aware (from other posts) that power cuts were widespread in many parts during the afternoon of the great storm. This was especially true in Kilkenny. My power (and main data logger) went down shortly after the the first savage gust of 116 kph hit at 1:45pm. Power came back on shortly after 3pm and the data logger went straight back into operation. My website then recorded a new max gust of 128 kph at that stage.
Fortunately though the base unit of my anemometer does have a battery back-up and during the course of the black-out, it still kept track of the gusts and recorded a max gust of 133 kph at 2:57pm.
It was indeed a very strong gust for the Kilkenny area and shattered my previous record so far this winter of 86 kph.
The anemometer is located on a mast of approx 3 metres above roof top level (on a 6m house). So it is about 10m over level ground. It is also well exposed to all points west as the ground falls away in that direction into the River Nore valley. It was well sited to catch the gusts on the 12th.

I have posted a summary of the events (from a Kilkenny perspective) here on my website.

http://www.kilkennyweather.com/index.php/2014-the-great-february-storm

Villain

StratoQ wrote: »

I run the Kilkennyweather.com weather station and have to put right the wrong implied here.

The poster should have been well aware (from other posts) that power cuts were widespread in many parts during the afternoon of the great storm. This was especially true in Kilkenny. My power (and main data logger) went down shortly after the the first savage gust of 116 kph hit at 1:45pm. Power came back on shortly after 3pm and the data logger went straight back into operation. My website then recorded a new max gust of 128 kph at that stage.
Fortunately though the base unit of my anemometer does have a battery back-up and during the course of the black-out, it still kept track of the gusts and recorded a max gust of 133 kph at 2:57pm.
It was indeed a very strong gust for the Kilkenny area and shattered my previous record so far this winter of 86 kph.
The anemometer is located on a mast of approx 3 metres above roof top level (on a 6m house). So it is about 10m over level ground. It is also well exposed to all points west as the ground falls away in that direction into the River Nore valley. It was well sited to catch the gusts on the 12th.

I have posted a summary of the events (from a Kilkenny perspective) here on my website.

http://www.kilkennyweather.com/index.php/2014-the-great-february-storm

Fair play great write up, and great info as always

jack o shea

met eireann are some operation, never warned us about a hurricane last wednesday and forgot to tell us about a 2 inch downpour today,does anyone know what they actually do up there?

Chris The Hacker

jack o shea wrote: »

met eireann are some operation, never warned us about a hurricane last wednesday and forgot to tell us about a 2 inch downpour today,does anyone know what they actually do up there?

Calling that storm a hurricane is an insult to those who've actually experienced a hurricane.

Hurricanes only form in the tropics and they are more powerful. The technical name for the type of storms we experience are called European windstorms.

Hurricane:



European windstorm:

sdanseo

jack o shea wrote: »

met eireann are some operation, never warned us about a hurricane last wednesday and forgot to tell us about a 2 inch downpour today,does anyone know what they actually do up there?

Hurricane force gusts maybe, but the storm that hit us didn't have the sustained winds of a hurricane at all. Even if it had, it would have been an extratropical (or post-tropical) cyclone.

Met Éireann had a number of warnings out in advance, maybe fewer than they should and maybe not severe enough but they warned of severe weather a day in advance.

BuilderPlumber

sdeire wrote: »

Hurricane force gusts maybe, but the storm that hit us didn't have the sustained winds of a hurricane at all. Even if it had, it would have been an extratropical (or post-tropical) cyclone.

Met Éireann had a number of warnings out in advance, maybe fewer than they should and maybe not severe enough but they warned of severe weather a day in advance.

The 'storm' was definitely not a typical European windstorm or neither was it an American/Caribbean style hurricane. It was somewhere in between and out of the ordinary for here.

I am always wary of unseasonal weather. Storms are something that occur 99% of the time between mid October to December (and sometimes going on into the early half of January but this is relatively rare). They are not a common feature of February weather and when one sees storms in February, you know something's wrong. Just like that 2010 snow in November that lasted a whole month (snow is more common in later December and especially January and February with possibilities in March for it too).

Extreme storms are rare. Along with last Wednesday, Christmases 1997 and 1998 come to mind as extreme storms (with an honourable mention to St Stephen's day just gone as a bordering on the truly extreme as well).

maquiladora

sdeire wrote: »

Hurricane force gusts maybe, but the storm that hit us didn't have the sustained winds of a hurricane at all. Even if it had, it would have been an extratropical (or post-tropical) cyclone.

Met Éireann had a number of warnings out in advance, maybe fewer than they should and maybe not severe enough but they warned of severe weather a day in advance.

Mace Head did record sustained hurricane force winds.

Sherkin and Shannon Airport recorded sustained winds just 3 knots below hurricane force. So given that Met stations cannot cover every area it seems clear that winds did reach hurricane force in places, and in terms of damage potential the difference of a couple of knots is more academic than practical.

Of course it wasnt a hurricane, they are purely tropical system. But sustained winds at times would have been similar to a low end Cat 1 hurricane in places.

Oneiric 3

Attempted a graphical representation of distribution of highest mean wind speeds (in Beaufort Force) as based on station data in the met.ie report on the recent storm, Smoothness and colour coding leads a lot to be desired and is of very low linear resolution due to sparseness of data. Also no data from the north incorporated on map



Fair to say the southern half of the county, along with western coastal regions bore the brunt overall with northern inland regions escaping almost completely.

Spring Onion

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Was it really worst in west Galway? I would have thought it was way worse in Cork/Kerry/Limerick. I felt it was windy but not more so than the other storms since November. There was very little damage done in my area (Moycullen/Oughterard).

Spring Onion

Chris The Hacker wrote: »

Calling that storm a hurricane is an insult to those who've actually experienced a hurricane.

Hurricanes only form in the tropics and they are more powerful. The technical name for the type of storms we experience are called European windstorms.

Hurricane:

That hurricane is really a thing of beauty and much 'tidier' than our storms!

Cogsy88

http://www.met.ie/news/display.asp?ID=244

Oneiric 3

Spring Onion wrote: »

Was it really worst in west Galway? I would have thought it was way worse in Cork/Kerry/Limerick. I felt it was windy but not more so than the other storms since November. There was very little damage done in my area (Moycullen/Oughterard).

The map is just a very rough estimation of national high mean wind speeds based on painfully few synoptic station reports so unfortunately far from perfect. Highest mean speed was recorded at Mace Hd in Conammara but would agree that would not be representative of speeds in west Galway in general. Here in east Galway however, mean speeds reached Gale 8, the highest since January 2009, though gust speeds more on par with other storms this season.

Chris The Hacker

Spring Onion wrote: »

That hurricane is really a thing of beauty and much 'tidier' than our storms!

New Orleans didn't look too beautiful when it made landfall; but, yeah, people seem to forget that hurricanes are clusters of thunderstorms that have compacted together and are shaped like a compact disc. The cloud tops are much whiter because thunderclouds extend higher into the atmosphere.

The mechanics of hurricanes are completely different too. They feed on sea temperatures of 27*C and start to die if they pass over water colder than that.

Conmaicne Mara

Spring Onion wrote: »

Was it really worst in west Galway? I would have thought it was way worse in Cork/Kerry/Limerick. I felt it was windy but not more so than the other storms since November. There was very little damage done in my area (Moycullen/Oughterard).

I can tell you that I drove from Galway to Clifden-ish on the Wednesday. Called into Rocky Mountain High in Oughterard and left not long after 2pm. John said he had never heard wind "like this" as I was leaving the shop.

Car, Toyota Avensis, was being pushed off the road both sides of Maam Cross. 50-60kmh driving speed, I am not a nervous driver but I was worried (had kids to pick up at 3pm so had no option but to keep going).

Lakes along the way were like the sea during the recent storms. Big waves, water being sucked up off them and brought with the wind.

Lots of branches down, over the next couple of days I saw plenty of trees both snapped or knocked over completely, Eircom pole snapped in half close to home.

I didn't hear of shed or house damage TBH but I was out in it and didn't like it one bit.

Colonialboy

Spring Onion wrote: »

Was it really worst in west Galway? I would have thought it was way worse in Cork/Kerry/Limerick. I felt it was windy but not more so than the other storms since November. There was very little damage done in my area (Moycullen/Oughterard).

Im in West Cork and had vistors from West Galway post the storm.
They commented that there was far more destruction and devastation in Cork , they said there wasnt much damage around West Galway. Im familiar with both areas

so .... put it in perspective.

West Galway has far fewer trees, its used to alot more wind, therefore less growth, less things to damage, plus its housing stock would be predominantly bungalows, low slung, built in positions to protect against the frequent and regular wind they have. Plus the farming profile is much different, more sheep in West Galway and not as much intensive large scale tillage, hay consequently not as many large farm out-buildings

So West Galway could very well have had more wind, but Cork Kerry see more devastation .

Red Nissan

Colonialboy wrote: »

So West Galway could very well have had more wind, but Cork Kerry see more devastation .

I don't think we can isolate this as clearly as that. Cork in particular has had the least effect from this series of storms overall, with just two making a major impact.

Galway area has experienced major impact from all the events in the last two months.

One of my anemometers has a new personal record of 77km/h in it's sheltered position but my more exposed one was out of battery at a time that the Airport rep[orted a 124KM/h gust [which was not the highest at that time].

whitebriar

I would imagine , like oneric said earlier, there simply aren't enough weather stations.
Places in Kilkenny may have had gusts as high as Galway or Kerry as the height of the storm passed over them.We don't know but it wouldn't surprise me.

SeaFields

Am back down in south west kerry for a few days and went for a very long drive around. It was striking the amount of electricity technicians (both irish and UK) still out repairing lines. The likes of Valentia Island, Portmagee, Ballinaskelligs all had techs working away. Crazy to see the damage is still being repaired a week later.

Colonialboy

Red Nissan wrote: »

I don't think we can isolate this as clearly as that. Cork in particular has had the least effect from this series of storms overall, with just two making a major impact.

Galway area has experienced major impact from all the events in the last two months.

One of my anemometers has a new personal record of 77km/h in it's sheltered position but my more exposed one was out of battery at a time that the Airport rep[orted a 124KM/h gust [which was not the highest at that time].

have a read off the thread title..
Im commenting regarding 'The Great Storm of Wednesday 12/02/2014.

sdanseo

maquiladora wrote: »

Mace Head did record sustained hurricane force winds.

Sherkin and Shannon Airport recorded sustained winds just 3 knots below hurricane force. So given that Met stations cannot cover every area it seems clear that winds did reach hurricane force in places, and in terms of damage potential the difference of a couple of knots is more academic than practical.

Of course it wasnt a hurricane, they are purely tropical system. But sustained winds at times would have been similar to a low end Cat 1 hurricane in places.

Looks like when I checked figures for sustained wind speeds I either got the Beaufort scale conversion wrong entirely or just checked incorrect or out of date data. Either way, I was incorrect - there were indeed sustained hurricane force winds.

Or, as the slightly less enthused might say, "ah sure it was a bit windy there for a bit".
:pac:

Red Nissan

Colonialboy wrote: »

have a read off the thread title..
Im commenting regarding 'The Great Storm of Wednesday 12/02/2014.

Indeed, my point being there was a lot of damage already done to the wider Galway area. There was arguably less vulnerable targets when the big wind came and seemingly by passed Galway and damaged further away areas like Cork and Kilkenny.

KingdomRushed

Just re-reading this thread. It is truly fascinating. In particular the posts from around page 18 to page 50 or so. These were the posts from around Tuesday afternoon until Wednesday morning.

The analysis here was spot on, down to very fine details. You can see how exasperated the posters were getting with regard to how this storm was being presented by Met Eireann by 9pm on Tuesday.

It is very interesting stuff indeed. Great to reread, even better than the old snow threads.

ronnie3585

It has been estimated that up to 7.5 million trees have fallen in forests following the severe storm on February 12th, according to early indications from the forestry industry.
The Windblow Taskforce, set up by the Department of Agriculture to assess the damage done from Storm Darwin, has estimated that between 5,000 and 7,000 hectares of forest were blown down, mostly in Munster.

The Department of Agriculture’s forest service said it was very hard to estimate the number of fallen trees but it could be as high as 7.5 million.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/storm-darwin-blew-down-up-to-7-5-million-trees-task-force-finds-1.1712533

:eek: