Extratropical Storm Ophelia - Technical Analysis Only - MOD NOTE post #1

Supercell wrote: »

I think the Wicklow mountains provided considerable protection to Dublin, or at least southern Dublin during the height of this. Reviewing my weather records for the last few five years or so, this storm would rank around third place on an annual basis on average windspeed or maximum gust, so far from anything exceptional here with little of any damage around this local area that i can see.
Not writing off the seriousness of it, just an observation that Dublin got off very lightly all things considered. I do worry that should there be another storm of a similar nature with stronger easterly or westerly winds that Dubliners may be in for an unpleasant surprise and may well be totally unprepared for it.

The Wicklow mountains were providing shadow out as far as Ashbourne if our experience here is anything to go by, the gusts in the evening when the winds veered to more Westerly was that they were more intense and violent than they had been during the afternoon. It's very noticeable that there are very few power outages in the area directly North of the mountains, and I'm pretty convinced that the shadow of the mountains has a lot to do with that.

I was online and looking at the various sites on Saturday evening when the nationwide Red alert was declared, and at that time, the track being predicted was slightly different, and the Dublin area was being shown as getting extreme South Easterly winds earlier in the day, with more emphasis on the East component, which would have meant little protection would have been given by the mountains. In the event, there was a lot less East component in the wind, which helped to significantly mitigate the strength felt in the Dublin area, and for sure reduced the damage that occurred. As to the exact why, I'll leave that analysis to the weather experts, I am guessing it was down to the track that the storm took, and the way that the adjacent higher pressure areas influenced things. The track it took also meant that East Clare didn't get hammered to the degree that was being forecast, the proximity of the eye to the coast meant that the winds in that area were less, again, a good thing, my son is on top of a hill with precious little between him and Newfoundland, so they were very happy that the original forecast did not quite happen, what did go through was more than enough for him, he'd been warned what was coming, so anything that could move had already been moved.

For me, even if some places didn't get the severity that was possible, it was a good call, and I am very sure that making it wasn't easy, but I am sure that it did save lives. As for some of the people complaining, if the loss of significantly less than half a percentage point of their annual turnover is going to cause them such severe problems, there are questions to be asked about how that business is operating and being financed.