 Satellite image of the powerful storm The Great Storm of 1987 occurred on October 15 and 16, 1987, when an unusually strong weather system caused hurricane force winds to hit much of the south of England. It was the worst storm to hit England since the Great Storm of 1703 and was responsible for the deaths of approximately 23 people. Image File history File links Windstorm. ...
Image File history File links Windstorm. ...
October 15 is the 288th day of the year (289th in leap years). ...
October 16 is the 289th day of the year (290th in Leap years). ...
1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
This article is about weather phenomena. ...
Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English Government Constitutional monarchy - Queen Queen Elizabeth II - Prime Minister Tony Blair MP Unification - by Athelstan AD927 Area - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK) 50,346 sq mi - Water (%) Population...
The Great Storm of 1703 is the most severe storm ever recorded in the British Isles. ...
According to the Beaufort scale of wind intensities, the storm had sustained winds of hurricane force, although there are some who prefer the term European windstorm as the term hurricane refers to cyclones originating in North Atlantic, North and Northeastern Pacific, or the Central North Pacific. The storm had winds equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. Although the storm was declared a rare event, expected only to happen on average every several hundred years, the Burns' Day storm hit the UK in January 1990, less than three years later and with comparable intensity. The Beaufort scale is an empirical measure for describing wind intensity based mainly on observed sea conditions. ...
A European windstorm is a severe cyclonic storm that tracks across the North Atlantic towards northwestern Europe in the winter months. ...
Cyclone Catarina, a rare South Atlantic tropical cyclone viewed from the International Space Station on March 26, 2004. ...
The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale is a scale classifying most Western Hemisphere tropical cyclones that exceed the levels of tropical depression and tropical storm and thereby become hurricanes. ...
The Burns Day Storm occurred on January 25–26, 1990, over Northwestern Europe and is one of the strongest storms on record. ...
Origins
The storm originated from a cold front in the Bay of Biscay that met with cold air coming from the north. When the two systems collided, a severe low pressure front developed with a central pressure of 958 mbar (comparable to a Category 3 hurricane, which typically has a central pressure between 945 and 964 mbar). How such a low pressure system could develop is still a mystery, but one theory is that it was as a result of the jet stream coming from America in the wake of Hurricane Floyd (1987) and exceptionally warm weather of the Bay of Biscay. Map of the Bay of Biscay. ...
Jet streams are fast flowing, relatively narrow air currents found in the atmosphere at around 12 km above the surface of the Earth, just under the tropopause. ...
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The 1987 Atlantic hurricane season was an ongoing event in the annual cycle of tropical cyclone formation. ...
Michael Fish controversy BBC meteorologist Michael Fish drew sharp criticism for reporting several hours before the storm hit, in seemingly flippant fashion: "Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way… well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't". In fact his comments about a hurricane had nothing to do with the UK; they referred to Florida and were linked to a news story that immediately preceded the weather bulletin, but have been so widely misreported that the British public remains convinced they referred to the approaching storm. According to Michael Fish, the woman in question was actually a colleague's mother who was about to go on holiday in the Caribbean and had called regarding the hurricane to see if it was safe to travel.[1] The British Broadcasting Corporation, invariably known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest public broadcasting corporation in the world. ...
Meteorology is the scientific study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecasting. ...
Michael Fish (born April 27, 1944) was a weather forecaster, most known for his BBC television weather presentations, although he was actually employed by the Met Office. ...
Fish went on to warn viewers in the UK to "batten down the hatches", saying it would be "very windy" across the south of England, but predicted that the storm would move further south along the English Channel and the British mainland would escape the worst effects. The remainder of his warning is frequently left out of re-runs which only adds to the public's misrepresentation of his forecasting that evening. Satellite view of the English Channel Map of the English Channel The English Channel (French: La Manche (IPA: ) is the part of the Atlantic Ocean that separates the island of Great Britain from northern France and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. ...
His analysis has been defended by weather experts. In particular, the lack of a weather reporting ship in the southwest of England, due to Met Office cutbacks, meant the only manner of tracking the storm was by using satellite data (automatic buoys had not been invented at the time). The storm was also a highly unusual occurrence and therefore very difficult to predict. Even if Fish had been talking about the approaching storm, he would still have been technically correct in his statement, as the storm of 1987 was neither tropical or extra-tropical in nature, and therefore could not possibly be a hurricane. The new building on the edge of Exeter The Met Office (originally an abbreviation for Meteorological Office, but now the official name in itself), which has its headquarters at Exeter in Devon, is the UKs national weather service. ...
A weather satellite is a type of artificial satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather and climate of the Earth. ...
1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Extratropical cyclones lie somewhere in between tropical cyclones and mid-latitude cyclones, drawing a portion of their energy through the evaporation and condensation of ocean water, and some through horizontal temperature gradients in the atmosphere. ...
This article is about weather phenomena. ...
Effects The storm made landfall at Cornwall before tracking northeast towards Devon and then over the Midlands, going out to sea via The Wash. The strongest gusts, of up to 100 knots, were recorded along the southeastern edge of the storm. Cornish Flag Cornwall (Cornish: Kernow) is a county in South West England on the peninsula that lies to the west of the River Tamar. ...
Devon is a large county in South West England, bordering on Cornwall to the west, Dorset and Somerset to the east. ...
In general, the midlands of a territory are its central regions. ...
The Wash, as seen looking west from Heacham, Norfolk The Wash is also the name of a 2001 film. ...
A knot is a unit of speed, abbreviated kt or kn. ...
The storm caused substantial damage over much of England, downing some 15 million trees (including six of the seven famous oak trees in Sevenoaks and most of the trees making up Chanctonbury Ring), blocking roads and railways and leaving widespread structural damage to buildings. Several hundred thousand people were left without power, which was not fully restored until more than two weeks later. Local electric utility officials later said they lost more wires in that single storm than they had in the preceding decade. At sea, as well as many small boats being wrecked, a ship capsized at Dover, a cross-channel ferry was driven ashore at Folkestone, and the transmitting mast of the Radio Caroline pirate radio boat the Ross Revenge was wrecked. In addition to the 19 lives lost in England, at least four more died in France. The estimated cost of the storm was £1.2 billion. Sevenoaks is a town in Kent, in south-east England. ...
Chanctonbury Ring is a ring of trees atop Chanctonbury Hill on the South Downs, West Sussex, England. ...
Map sources for Dover at grid reference TR315415 Arms of Dover Borough Council This article is about the English port town. ...
Map sources for Folkestone at grid reference TR2236 Folkestone Harbour, picture taken from the golf court Folkestone (pronounced fÅkstun) is a coastal resort town in the Shepway district of Kent, England. ...
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The term pirate radio lacks a specific universal interpretation. ...
The lack of reporting during this storm led to reforms in the way the Met Office reports severe weather, leading to substantially more warnings being issued in the future, the deployment of improved tracking devices and an increase in the depth of the simulations supported by the purchase of an additional Cray supercomputer. Warnings for the Burns' Day storm 3 years later were accurate and on time. The new building on the edge of Exeter The Met Office (originally an abbreviation for Meteorological Office, but now the official name in itself), which has its headquarters at Exeter in Devon, is the UKs national weather service. ...
For alternate meanings, see Cray (disambiguation). ...
A supercomputer is a computer that leads the world in terms of processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation, at the time of its introduction. ...
The Burns Day Storm occurred on January 25–26, 1990, over Northwestern Europe and is one of the strongest storms on record. ...
Trivia - In the mid 1940s, famed author J. R. R. Tolkien of Lord of the Rings fame wrote an abandoned novel called The Notion Club Papers, which is an unfinished time/dream/travel story. In the story, people from the early 21st Century find a lost document, written in the 1980s and containing a reference to an enormous storm that happened in 1987.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE (January 3, 1892 – September 2, 1973) is best known as the author of The Hobbit and its sequel The Lord of the Rings. ...
Dust jacket of the 1968 UK edition The Lord of the Rings is an epic fantasy story by J. R. R. Tolkien, a sequel to his earlier work, The Hobbit. ...
The Notion Club Papers is the title of an abandoned novel by J. R. R. Tolkien, written during 1945 and published posthumously in Sauron Defeated, the 9th volume of The History of Middle-earth. ...
External links - Met Office report
- Michael Fish and the 1987 Storm
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