The Great UK Storm Of February 2022

[pete9012S]

This storm is already breaking records:

Britain faces full force of Storm Eunice: Wind speed reaches ferocious 122MPH - the strongest EVER recorded in England

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... pital.html

The same article posted a picture of the man below!



How is the storm affecting you? I live near the coast and in the last hour or so the wind has increased dramatically along with heavy, driving rain.

[Fiona1986]

We are avoiding the worst of it, just mildly windy and some snow.

[Katharine]

I think we are at the peak of it right now!

I had to run outside a short while ago, as the rain cover on one of my guinea pig cages had blown off, including the brick which holds it in place! I didn't attempt to try and refit the cover, just put it somewhere it wouldn't blow away, and then put the brick back on the lid of the cage, as it's a lift up roof, so don't want the wind to flip the lid up.

I work at Sutton Hoo which is quite a wooded area, and they were shut to the public yesterday and today. I was supposed to be working today and was very anxious about driving out there. However yesterday, when I checked the guest information, I realised that the flat I had been allocated was empty yesterday, so I asked if I could go in and get it ready yesterday instead of today. Thankfully my supervisor thought that was a good idea, so I was able to do that, plus get some shopping on the way home, so have no need to leave the house today. My daughter's school broke up for half-term yesterday, so she didn't have to go to in today either, although chances are they would have closed anyway, as all the local schools seem to have shut today.

[timv]

I live within sight (when the trees are bare of leaves) of the Needles and it felt like that 122 mph gust was hitting Lymington too! It's been very stormy on and off since about 10 am, with sudden bursts of wind then a lull, but it seems to be slightly improving now. Social media reports locally are saying a lot of smaller trees have come down on various roads, but no structural damage around my end of the High Street so far. It's certainly been the strongest winds that I can remember for several decades, and possibly since the storm of January 1990 (when I was in a coach on the M3 and it was swaying from side to side precariously). The winds here have been less intense and prolonged than the great storm in November 1987, when they lasted without a break for several hours and hundreds of trees came down near our house on the North Downs. Some of the woods which I know in Sussex were permanently altered by the number of trees lost then.

Late yesterday afternoon it was almost calm if cold on the cliffs at Milford, and people and dogs were paddling in the (somewhat choppy) sea with the daffodils and snowdrops out; the British winters get ever more varied at short notice.

[Julie2owlsdene]

It arrived for us around 6am ish this morning, and started to leave Cornwall around 1pm ish. We still have a few winds and a bit of rain, but not the high winds we had this morning. Trees down, fences down, and the sea very high. RNLI have been asking folk to stay away from sea walls etc, as some of their lifeboats couldn't go out in such fierce storms, to save people, and yet some idiots have been going in for a swim and jumping off sea walls!!!!

[Lucky Star]

I have just completed thirteen hours at the airport where we had a lot of flight cancellations which made for an awkward and stressful day with angry and frustrated passengers taking it out on the staff. Not our fault the awful Eunice decided to show up today. Other than that the winds around here seem to have died down a good bit this evening. Hopefully that's the end of it.

[pete9012S]

Sorry to hear that John - do you miss the supermarket work on days like these??

[Katharine]

John, sorry to hear about your bad day. Having seen footage of planes trying to land today, I would have thought the passengers would be grateful their safety was taking priority rather than schedules being stuck to!

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

I got back from a short break in Pembrokeshire at 6.30 tonight.

We were watching the weather forecasts very carefully. That far west in Wales we weren't in the Red Zone, but our route along the M4 took us directly through it. Helen was then going on to Bournemouth, on the edge of the South-East Red Zone!

The Red warning expired at noon. We decided to proceed with the journey after lunch, when the storm had passed through. I was concerned that we might get stuck in a traffic jam, with traffic going no-where because of a fallen tree / flying trampoline / misplaced roof etc, so on the back seat we had thermos' full of hot water, food, spare clothes etc.

We must have been amongst the first to cross the Prince of Wales Bridge over the River Severn. Online info said it was closed, but we reckoned that the traffic coming towards us implied it was open, and happily that was the case. Turning onto the M5 at Bristol - we had the motorway to ourselves!

John drove steadily and safely - and was rewarded with all the uneaten cake left over from the trip

When I got back to my flat it was in darkness - powercut - but happily we are now reconnected

[Boatbuilder]

It was blowing pretty badly all day here on the east coast since about 11-am. I live about 1.3 miles from the actual coastline as the crow flies, but the wind was offshore, mainly from the south or south-west, so wasn't as bad as when we get onshore storms. I have an outside weather station and my indoor display tells me that the strongest gust recorded today was at 19:59 tonight at 41.8 mph. I don't know how accurate it is.

However, I have an outside bench in the back garden. alongside which there is a two-foot square folding light aluminium table and they both normally get blown over in gale force winds but amazingly they haven't moved all day and the back of the house, which faces south, would have received the full force of the winds.

[dsr]

Here in Lancashire, it was a bit noisier than the storm three weeks ago but not all that much different, really. Wednesday just gone wasn't too clever either.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Sorry you had such a stressful day at work, John (Lucky Star).

I've just been to our local outdoor market but there were barely any stalls there because people had thought that the stong winds might continue. It's actually a beautiful day of sunshine, snowdrops, ducklings and daffodils, with not even a breath of breeze to disturb the calm!

[Moonraker]

Yes, it doesn't take much for our market traders to decide to stay at home.

[pete9012S]

It's actually a beautiful day of sunshine, snowdrops, ducklings and daffodils, with not even a breath of breeze to disturb the calm!

This sounds so blissfully Blytonesque!

Apparently that's a real word now:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Blytonesque

[pete9012S]