The Great Storm of Wednesday 12/02/2014

Villain · 15-02-2014 3:36pm

Well I got my print

Robxxx7 · 15-02-2014 4:12pm

Villain wrote: »

Well I got my print

Nice .. What size print is that ?

Cantona's Collars · 15-02-2014 4:14pm

Took a walk through the woods near the homeplace,it's like an asteroid hit at one point,rows upon rows of massive trees down.Looks like the wind was funneled up along the river valley and literally smashed parts of the woods to bits.

whitebriar · 15-02-2014 5:11pm

Power back this afternoon here west of Arklow

Villain · 15-02-2014 5:23pm

Robxxx7 wrote: »

Nice .. What size print is that ?

Its about A0

Villain · 15-02-2014 5:24pm

I have posted a blog post on the storm just to record some details including some charts prior to the event

http://carlowweather.com/blog/the-great-storm-of-february-12th-2014/

Stinicker · 15-02-2014 6:25pm

It was today that we were finally able to take stock of just how badly hit my property was here in Kerry. Personally we estimate we incurred over €20,000 worth of damage and we lost our biggest farm shed to the onslaught. On Wednesday during the afternoon there was a lul and this gave us enough time to cover several hundred bales of hay with tarp's and we tried to stabilise the rest of the structure.

Then on Thursday morning we awoke to two or three inches of snow so the priority was for the livestock, several dozen of which were now homeless after the shed was razed to the ground.

Yesterday then must have seen several inches of rain and absolute chaos again but not additional damage. Today we moved all our hay indoors and began the clean-up and counting the cost.

We had around twenty trees uprooted and the gale actually cracked some of them straight in two halves. It broke off half of a juniper tree which my great-grand uncles grew from a seed which the brought back from America when they fled home to Ireland after the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.

Devastation and Carnage all round and we reckon the winds that blew were not far from 150mph. Amazingly and thankfully the house survived completely and totally intact, in the 19th Century the house was constructed after the previous dwelling was destroyed during the night of the big wind in 1839, the replacement dwelling having been demolished in 1906 by the previous returned San Francisco brothers and the current house built in the same spot. Those lessons from 1839 and decision to place the house into a natural sheltered hollow saved it on Wednesday when devastation encircled it.

A credit to the ESB finally who also had the power restored within 24 hours and they have been doing trojant work these last few days all over the country.

michael999999 · 15-02-2014 6:29pm

Condolences to the family of the Eircom worker that died today after being hit by a falling pole or tree.

Puts everything else in perspective!

greysides · 15-02-2014 7:36pm

michael999999 wrote: »

Condolences to the family of the Eircom worker that died today after being hit by a falling pole or tree.

Puts everything else in perspective!

Very unfortunate the storm claimed a fatality at this late hour.

michael999999 · 15-02-2014 7:42pm

greysides wrote: »

Very unfortunate the storm claimed a fatality at this late hour.

It sounds like a freak accident. More so when today had been like a summers day.

Tactical · 15-02-2014 10:42pm

Villain wrote: »

Well I got my print

That on a good quality canvas would be nice..... Hmmmm, makes mental note to investigate cost.

There is still the potential for me to get a few shots of some storm damage in my area. Still many trees blown across roads and hung up on Eircom lines as well as some galvanised roofing sheets, a half destroyed commercial chicken shed.

A photobook might not be a bad idea either as many online suppliers are reasonably cheap with these now....

Oh the possibilities. ..

Villain · 15-02-2014 10:49pm

Tactical wrote: »

That on a good quality canvas would be nice..... Hmmmm, makes mental note to investigate cost.

There is still the potential for me to get a few shots of some storm damage in my area. Still many trees blown across roads and hung up on Eircom lines as well as some galvanised roofing sheets, a half destroyed commercial chicken shed.

A photobook might not be a bad idea either as many online suppliers are reasonably cheap with these now....

Oh the possibilities. ..

Ya I got it on matt photo paper for now, at €35 it wasn't bad value imo.

leinad · 15-02-2014 11:33pm

Villain wrote: »

I have posted a blog post on the storm just to record some details including some charts prior to the event

http://carlowweather.com/blog/the-great-storm-of-february-12th-2014/

Nice much appreciated

oak5548 · 15-02-2014 11:43pm

http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0215/504578-glengarriff-death/

R.I.P.

This Storm may not have killed anybody directly, but it really did effect and contribute to many incidents that day with the emergency services being stretched like that. They're already beyond capacity as it is without the storm.

Heard that there was literally 150+ calls stacked on the backlog for fire services.

Tactical · 16-02-2014 12:17am

Villain wrote: »

Ya I got it on matt photo paper for now, at €35 it wasn't bad value imo.

Not bad value at all. Must have a look through the various papers I have as I'm wondering about a pearl paper. Have done some B&W printing on this in the past, however this image will probably look better on the matte paper.

I couldn't print at A0 though and knowing the cost of print consumables and paper stock, I really do think the price was good value.

Looking forward to a quick photo tour tomorrow to capture any last remaining aftermath images as I've been sick and confined to barracks for the last few days

ch750536 · 16-02-2014 12:28pm

Power & water back please. But work safely first, only power & water after all.

DIF · 16-02-2014 1:29pm

I finally have my broadband back... haven't been on Boards since Tuesday... I've so much catching up to do!:D

Tactical · 16-02-2014 4:30pm

Following a tour of the local area, I found that most of the debris has been cleared and some trees across a road but suspended on Eircom wires had been cleared.

So much for getting the last few shots. Need to make sure I'm not sick for the next decent weather event

Still, the small fella enjoyed the trip out and about trying to spot a few downed trees

Will pull together a few photo's for posterity instead.

whitebriar · 16-02-2014 9:25pm

ch750536 wrote: »

Power & water back please. But work safely first, only power & water after all.

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

Villain · 16-02-2014 11:16pm

A weather station on Mt Leinster recorded 89.9mph or 144.6kmh on Wednesday! A lot of damage up there with huge number of trees down I posted some image on my Facebook page www.facebook.com/pages/Carlow-Weather/152080598201193

ch750536 · 17-02-2014 1:52pm

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 · 17-02-2014 5:45pm

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 · 17-02-2014 5:58pm

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 · 17-02-2014 7:55pm

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 · 17-02-2014 8:32pm

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

They seem telepathic enough when sending out the bills.

Classic!

Henwin · 17-02-2014 8:50pm

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 · 17-02-2014 9:16pm

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 · 17-02-2014 9:29pm

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 · 17-02-2014 9:33pm

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 · 18-02-2014 3:01am

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 · 18-02-2014 3:40am

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 · 18-02-2014 3:45am

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 · 18-02-2014 9:19am

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 · 18-02-2014 10:22am

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 · 18-02-2014 6:16pm

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 · 18-02-2014 10:20pm

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 · 18-02-2014 10:23pm

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 · 18-02-2014 11:35pm

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

Oneiric 3 · 19-02-2014 12:03am

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 · 19-02-2014 12:17am

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 · 19-02-2014 1:02am

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 · 19-02-2014 9:15am

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 · 19-02-2014 2:17pm

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 · 19-02-2014 5:40pm

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 · 19-02-2014 7:19pm

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 · 19-02-2014 9:50pm

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 · 20-02-2014 6:50am

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 · 20-02-2014 10:03am

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 · 05-03-2014 4:56pm

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 · 05-03-2014 5:16pm

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:

The Great Storm of Wednesday 12/02/2014

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