Night of the Big Wind

ophelia75

Hi there,been a lurker for a while.Fantastic job you are all doing.As we have been plagued with storms of late,got me thinking that we are approaching the 177th anniversary of the mother of all Irish storms Oiche na Gaoithe Moire/Night of the Big Wind,1839.I know there was an rte/ITV(?)documentary a year or two ago.Went on the player and it has been taken off.Can't seem to find it on YouTube.Does anyone know where I can get my hands on it? Also,does anyone think such a beast could come to our shores again?Thanks guys!

M.T. Cranium

There's no reason to rule out a similar storm in the future. It requires a deep enough low pressure centre tracking close enough to land. There was almost as strong a storm that crossed the Irish Sea in December, 1886. The fact that it developed while crossing Ulster meant that the strongest winds were recorded in Lancashire, but it does illustrate that such storms can happen. Also a storm in February 1903 did enormous damage to trees across the inland south. There is no way of saying how many years it might be until a very similar storm, the return period of a storm like the 1839 storm is evidently very long, but as we only have vague records from years before about 1700, there's no easy way of estimating the return period.

At least the next time people will probably know it's coming at least a day or two in advance and will be able to take some preparations, also houses are now better constructed so that the very same storm would perhaps do less damage (although possibly to more structures).

piuswal

See

http://www.met.ie/climate-ireland/weather-events/Jan1839_Storm.PDF

kstand

Didnt Eddie Lenihan say it was the fairies?

bodun

kstand wrote: »

Didnt Eddie Lenihan say it was the fairies?

Yea, he was away with them at the time!