Sudden gust of wind.

Super-Rush

About 3pm yesterday I was sitting in my living room and it was flat calm, cloudy and humid outside. Our front windows face West and suddenly I could hear a noise like that I thought was a large van coming up our driveway. I looked out to see who it was and couldn't see anyone but noticed that the trees were shaking, next thing a gust of wind came through the open windows and then slammed them shut. About 5 seconds later there was silence and everything was calm again. I also lost the signal on my Sky box at the same time.

Was this just a rogue gust of wind? Is there such a thing?
Could it have been a gustnado?

Location is Carlow btw.

M.T. Cranium

Atmosphere was so stable, makes me wonder if some kind of aviation-related turbulent eddy was somehow transported down to the ground. I've seen one of those fair-weather swirls but it barely managed to gust to 20 mph and I've always thought they were more likely on a sunny day thanks to differential heating. The one that I saw was on Hallowe'en (1987) on a golf course and it picked up a few dozen leaves and swirled them around for a minute or two. I have seen more impressive ones on video from Ireland actually, one was near Shannon airport in an industrial park a few years ago.

Maybe somebody will have a better explanation, I hope so. As you're implying this was a westerly wind that sprang up, that seems to be opposite the prevailing slack wind flow. Are you near the approach to Dublin Airport or any other airport?

highdef

I got the same thing in north Kildare near enough around the same time or maybe slightly earlier. Was out the back garden with friends at the time. Before and after the event, it was more or less flat calm. There was a slight northerly component to whatever wind was there. It was sunny at all times. It was enough blow around stuff in the garden and it lasted about 10 seconds. Trees more than about 10 metres from the back garden did not move at all which would suggest that it was a local event. The back garden faces north east.
The front garden faces south west - half of it is unfinished driveway and the other half is grass. Outside is a tarmac road and concrete path.

Perhaps the heat differential between front and back garden together with the prevailing wind direction created this highly localised and short lived wind.

The location is quite rural, being in a small village with plenty of grasslands and fields all around.

Akrasia

Sounds like the start of 'The Happening'

Stay away from Trees and stay in small groups of people!!

(best worst film ever)

Iancar29

Could of been a dust devil with the surface heating going on during the day?

Super-Rush

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

Atmosphere was so stable, makes me wonder if some kind of aviation-related turbulent eddy was somehow transported down to the ground. I've seen one of those fair-weather swirls but it barely managed to gust to 20 mph and I've always thought they were more likely on a sunny day thanks to differential heating. The one that I saw was on Hallowe'en (1987) on a golf course and it picked up a few dozen leaves and swirled them around for a minute or two. I have seen more impressive ones on video from Ireland actually, one was near Shannon airport in an industrial park a few years ago.

Maybe somebody will have a better explanation, I hope so. As you're implying this was a westerly wind that sprang up, that seems to be opposite the prevailing slack wind flow. Are you near the approach to Dublin Airport or any other airport?

I'm out in the countryside MT, at the foothills of Mt Leinster.

Any breeze that was blowing yesterday was coming from a north easterly direction but this came from a westerly direction.

The Dagda

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

Atmosphere was so stable, makes me wonder if some kind of aviation-related turbulent eddy was somehow transported down to the ground. I've seen one of those fair-weather swirls but it barely managed to gust to 20 mph and I've always thought they were more likely on a sunny day thanks to differential heating. The one that I saw was on Hallowe'en (1987) on a golf course and it picked up a few dozen leaves and swirled them around for a minute or two. I have seen more impressive ones on video from Ireland actually, one was near Shannon airport in an industrial park a few years ago.

Maybe somebody will have a better explanation, I hope so. As you're implying this was a westerly wind that sprang up, that seems to be opposite the prevailing slack wind flow. Are you near the approach to Dublin Airport or any other airport?

MT Cranium just confirmed the existance of Gustnado.

piuswal

A gustnado is a specific type of short-lived, low-level rotating cloud that can form in a severe thunderstorm.

Thunderstorm conditions the last few days? I doubt it very much but then there may be another definition of a gustnasdo!

The Dagda

piuswal wrote: »

A gustnado is a specific type of short-lived, low-level rotating cloud that can form in a severe thunderstorm.

Thunderstorm conditions the last few days? I doubt it very much but then there may be another definition of a gustnasdo!

So it's a real thing?! Did not know that.

_Whimsical_

piuswal wrote: »

A gustnado is a specific type of short-lived, low-level rotating cloud that can form in a severe thunderstorm.

Thunderstorm conditions the last few days? I doubt it very much but then there may be another definition of a gustnasdo!

Wow. I think I saw one of these several years ago and I've always wondered what it was. It was a very hot July evening and right before some of the worst thunder and lightening I have ever seen a swirling wind picked up in our back garden for just a minute or two. It picked up garden furniture cushions and light flowerpots and they swirled around up into the air in front of us before dropping down afterwards. There was ball lightening seen closeby in the hour after it happened.
I'm glad to finally know what it was!

Rikand

Just saw this gif and i remembered this thread

https://gfycat.com/LavishWealthyAfricanwildcat



I wonder was it something like this

Hurrache

Full video of that is here
https://www.facebook.com/100006189856102/videos/2151396425076665/

Oneiric 3

Synoptic situation at 15UTC (4pm) yesterday (German Met Office) Nothing seems untoward other than a warm front was approaching the Carlow region from the west at this time.

Rikand

Sorry Oneiric - this thread is quite an old one. I just remembered it from the deeper recesses of my brain when I saw that gif that I posted

John mac

Hurrache wrote: »

Full video of that is here
https://www.facebook.com/100006189856102/videos/2151396425076665/

dosnt work for non fb peeps .
is there a youtube link?

OneEightSeven

John mac wrote: »

dosnt work for non fb peeps .
is there a youtube link?

Doesn't work for me and I'm logged in.

amadangomor

Remember fishing with my father and uncle on a river in Cavan and was pretty hot and a dust devil formed on the river and threw up water on me, kind of refreshing , they ran down the bank wondering was I OK.

Amazing experience being that close to a mini water spout. If it was now they probably would have recorded it on their phones and worried about whether I was OK after

Jeju

Remember making hay years ago in the West and a dust devil started. One of the older men had an Irish name for it and told us twas the fairys coming to take the children. We ran after it to see could we catch it.

spoonerhead

https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/south-dublin-residents-avoided-a-tornado-last-month-212713.html

Here’s an interesting one about freak winds. I was just down the road from where this apparently took off. Remember been woken to a wind I’ve still yet to experience again, damage was crazy! I I really taught it was a nightmare till I read this article a few months later. Article states it correctly, only this was at 6am lives would’ve been endangered and perhaps more would know of the “Crumlin/Drimnagh tornado”

tedpan

John mac wrote: »

dosnt work for non fb peeps .
is there a youtube link?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-35-hdWUZuk

testicles

This post has been deleted.

An Ri rua

Rikand wrote:

Just saw this gif and i remembered this thread

Jeju wrote:

Remember making hay years ago in the West and a dust devil started. One of the older men had an Irish name for it and told us twas the fairys coming to take the children. We ran after it to see could we catch it.

That looked awful like Fortycoats and his flyin shop. The b*strd...

Down our way in Offaly, they used to call them Fairyblasts. Saw a number of them in the summer of 84. Was in the high 20s. I vividly recall what seemed like a cock of hay falling from the sky. To my young eyes. But lots and lots of hay that was rowed and ready to bale.

forgottenhills

Jeju wrote: »

Remember making hay years ago in the West and a dust devil started. One of the older men had an Irish name for it and told us twas the fairys coming to take the children. We ran after it to see could we catch it.

I remember often seeing this phenomenon as a child in hay fields in the midlands. It was like watching a mini-tornado moving through a hayfield, blowing up hay into the air. It only seemed to happen on exceptionally warm days and would soon peter out. The old folk called it "will-o-the-wisp" in the area I was from.

I once ran after it and caught up with it but its winds didn't seem that strong. It is quite possible that it could get a lot stronger and produce the effects seen by the OP.

RoisinD

Sí gaoithe filmed in Kildare: https://twitter.com/farmersjournal/status/1010798999270502400

Jeju

RoisinD wrote:

Sí gaoithe filmed in Kildare:

Yea, that's it, think must have been 1984 and a scorcher of a day.