Storm Debi : Mon 13th Nov 2023

BrianD3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121369683#Comment_121369683

The weather warning criteria are for "widespread" gusts of a particular speed . If warnings are issued, even taking into account that forecasting is not exact and that some stations may be sheltered/unrepresentative, I'd expect a fair number of stations to record windspeeds as per the criteria.

For Debi, we had several counties under red warnings and others under orange. Of the 23 ME stations, none recorded red level gusts and 2 recorded low level orange level gusts.

For Ophelia, the entire country was under a red warning. 2 of 21 stations (as per Sryan Bruen's table) recorded red level gusts.

Nobody expects "perfection" but this is a recurring pattern. If ME's stations are in unrepresentative locations, they need more stations in representative locations and/or the entire warning system needs an overhaul.

sryanbruen

Anyway, on this occasion the actual speeds in the end are sort of irrelevant to the red warning. In the past 2 years, we've adopted more of a hybrid criteria/impact based system rather than 100% criteria. The red was clearly a case of being cautious in case a stingjet were to develop. Stingjets are notoriously challenging in predicting. In fact, a stingjet did likely happen over Galway from Debi if you paid attention to a hook-like feature over Galway Bay on the satellite imagery. The last stingjet that made landfall over Ireland that I recall before Debi was from Eleanor in January 2018. Belmullet had only a maximum gust of 89 km/h from this storm but Knock Airport had as much as 156 km/h yet both are in the same county. The nearby Newport had a gust of 139 km/h. There was no red warning for Eleanor at the time and was another storm Galway got severe floods from.

However, the red in the east of the country such as Dublin was likely down to timing of the strongest gusts than any actual numbers - occurring during rush hour after all. Debi passed further to the north and peaked earlier than that so the impacts weren't as severely felt here as they could have been. There was never any sign of red warranted winds in this part of the country if you were to go purely by the numbers.

We use the official stations ONLY as they are calibrated to a universal standard and are consistently quality checked though there are some questionable official stations as has long been debated on this forum before. No doubt there are some good placed and calibrated PWS out in this world but they're very much the minority. They cannot be compared. There would be so much inconsistency and problems if we were to start using PWS as a means of documenting an event.

highdef

Indeed, it's quite likely there was a sting jet in the north Midlands area, or an area of much enhanced winds at the very least. The area of power cuts shows this quite clearly.

Looking at the hook of cloud you mentioned, you can see it quite clearly on the satellite imagery from 05:05 on Monday morning, shortly before it slammed into my location in Longford.

A little over 5 minutes later, below is what I was experiencing (excuse the state of the house, it's being renovated). A constant roar of wind like a train or jet engine, combined with regular even higher gusts, slates smashing, corrugated iron sheets from the hay barn flying around the place, tree trunks snapping, etc. I had never been afraid during a storm in my life, until last Monday morning.

https://youtu.be/NoHMBVe9HJ0?feature=shared

snowstreams

I woke at 4:30 in Athenry from the roar & my 2 boys woke up shortly after that too. At the time I remember people in Clare were getting the worst of it from reading here on boards. But I could see what I thought was a squall line coming on the rainfall radar. It turned into more of a hook just around the oranmore area.

The wind really went wild shortly before the rain arrived, so I take it the sting jet was just in front of the rain band. We lost power & then we all moved downstairs to be safe. I forgot to screenshot it but I got a screenshot of it a while later when the sting was probably near Athlone.

I was in Castlebar when storm eleanor happened & Debi reminded me of it with how sudden the wind speeds picked up.

Here are a few photos from Renville where the marine institute is located. You can see that the water came a few metres higher than the car park level. That car park doesnt flood as often as Salthill so it makes this sea level rise more impressive. Plenty of old trees are down near the childrens playground in the park too. They would have been over 100 years old but maybe age was weakening them too.

Edit: The black stuff is seaweed that was left several metres above the highest sea level mark that I’ve seen before.

this field is still flooded with sea water too. Not sure if grass will be able to regrow there but with plenty of fresh Irish rain I’m sure it will recover!

quodec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121364631#Comment_121364631

I know storms were previously not named, but in my 1988 diary, for Tuesday 9th February, I have the following entry:

"Storm K. Violent winds and sleet all day."

Where would I have got the Storm K name from? Would the UK Met have called it that?

Robwindstorm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121370945#Comment_121370945

Brilliant, I have the name Storm K in my diary too. That storm was phenomenal and it was named Storm K by Met eireann . The satellite picture of the storm was on the front page of the Irish Independent with the caption Storm K. I think they named it because of how exceptional and widespread it was. I have it as Storm K in the 'weather memories ' thread a while back so I'm glad someone else has the name recorded.

SouthWesterly

You guys keep weather diaries ? I'm impressed 😁

Robwindstorm

Oh dear, I'm afraid that's true. It was just a basic record of the actual weather from the previous day . I have them from 1987 along with newspaper reports of all kinds of weather extremes. Most of them are somewhere in my parents attic but I still have access in my own home from 2008. That's the cat out of the bag!

Pa ElGrande

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121371820#Comment_121371820

Think this is the one: https://www.met.ie/cms/assets/uploads/2017/08/Feb1988_storm.pdf

Robwindstorm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121373324#Comment_121373324

That's the one alright.

Scrabbel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121370159#Comment_121370159

Of all the hundreds of thousands of possible locations there are 23 official stations. Again, gusts of a certain speed could be widespread without coincidentally hitting any of these stations. The most representative location for max gusts may not be the most representative for rain or temperature. So I still think an expectation that the max forecast gusts will be observed at some of the 23 stations (or less if just looking at red or orange areas) is misplaced.

Psychlops

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121359972#Comment_121359972

Weather like that wouldnt be an issue for an RNLI ALB.