Potential storm Wednesday 10th- Thursday 11th [title edited by HQ]

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

For a few days now GFS has been consistently showing a storm heading for northern Scotland mid week next week. It has varied in intensity and location somewhat, but for this time out it has been quite remarkable in its consistency. ECMWF agrees with the genesis of the storm, but has a different location of centre and therefore also strength.

A deep low pressure is forecast to develop somewhere between Iceland and Northern Scotland. at present it is shown as a complex low with a wide influence. For most of us it looks to be a windy and perhaps quite wet day but at present it looks relatively nasty for those in Scotland, with subzero temperatures and perhaps severe gales, leading to the potential for blizzards.

Its still someway off and so I do expect the details to change. If it comes further south as per the current ECMWF then there could also be a snow risk to hilly parts of northern England too.

This is quite a nasty old storm because of a combination of a long period of high windspeeds, potential for blizzards over higher ground and the poential for western coastal flooding.

Reminder of met office warnings

At the moment we are looking at 70-80mph off the western coast of Scotland I think, inland gusts 60-70. Gusts of around 60-70mph around the coasts of NW England.

There is also going to be a bit of a squeeze around the English channel with the coast of sussex seeing gusts of around 60mph. A windy day right across the UK.

Now Friday actually looks potentially interesting for those in the south. GFS attempts to spin off a little secondary low to the south of the main low. Something to keep an eye on.

I said earlier in the thread that the low from Wednesday/Thursday's storm was sitting in the North Sea deciding what it was going to do next!

How's it looking for Yorkshire ?

Morning!

So the storm is still very consistent in its forecast (I'm not sure I remember such consistency for such a long period) On wednesday the western Isles will be seeing gusts in excess of 80mph, the Glasgow - Liverpool stretch will potentially see gusts 70mph+, Eastern Scotland 50-60mph depending on location, Yorkshire 50mph+
Less windy in the Midlands and the south away from south coasts. The Sussex coast could see gusts of around 50mph as could coastal areas of the SW.

Winds will gradually die down through Thursday.

Precipitation wise. For much of Wednesday away from mountains a mix of precipitation for for Scotland, rain at coastal lower levels but obvious the higher up you are the more likely it is to be snow. As we go through Wednesday it will become increasing wintry to give perhaps some significant accumulation for central areas as we go into Thursday.

I'm still concerned about the possibility of coastal defences being topped in Western Scotland.

If anyone is in Ireland and wants me to include this in the discussion, please flag this up. Sometimes I can be quite tight for time in the morning.

Gah I work outside. I'm cold and it's raining

I take it back. Now sleeting.

I see the met office has just updated their warnings. The warning for the North now runs from Tuesday evening until Thursday, then there's a second system coming in the Southern half of the UK for Thursday into Friday, which looks to be a wet one for some people. Northern England and Southern Scotland look set to be constantly windy for the best part of 4 days.

link to warnings

Interesting to see that the secondary system that I saw on GFS yesterday is being verified by the met office, but they bring it in thursday night.

Some areas of the uk have an overlap of warning areas on thursday! During the day time though neither of those warnings will be active. It will be a good time to tidy up from the first bout.

back later.

Fab. Yorkshire in right in the middle of both of those storms on Thursday.

There is a huge amount of uncertainty about the Thursday night/friday storm. It may not spin up at all, or it might be a fairly windy affair. I don't think we are going to know for certainty until Wednesday evening whether its going to occur.

If you look at the met office warning, it gives it the lowest level of certainty.

BadKitten have you got any thoughts on how far east the storm may stretch on Wednesday evening? Due to fly back from Copenhagen to London, and the isobars are looking tightish on the pressure chart.

Oh good to know !

I was working outside today in Suffolk. It was perishing.

Tea do you mean in Copenhagen? early evening you are probably looking at gusts of around 40-50mph at a guess, pater on closer to 50. I don't really know the topology of Denmark or the resilience of Copenhagen airport to wind speeds. I might be able to do a little research tomorrow afternoon. (depends on the runway direction and the density of take off/landings - Heathrow is horribly vulnerable due to over capacity, Gatwick tends in my experience to cope better)

The met office has wind speed gusts of around 35-45 mph for copenhagen wednesday evening, so it looks like a reasonable estimate at present.

Od dear, I'm not looking forward to the commute to work in Glasgow the next few days

Oh no, DS trampoline keeps trying to escape next door when it's windy.

Would Xmas shopping in london on Thursday by train be a really stupid idea with these winds? Is it speeds that the train power lines are likely to blow down?

Thanks BK - I'll just keep my fingers crossed!

Oh dear. DH is supposed to be flying to and from Glasgow on Wed and Thurs evenings.....

Justgo - no, weather wise you should be absolutely fine.

Wanking - if you can turn it upside down.

Greenshadow. That is a little unfortunate in timing. Thursday shouldn't be so much of an issue.

Hello, pilot here. This wind stuff, it doesn't stop us taking off, flying or landing. What causes the delays are the reduction in 'flow rate,' i.e. the number of aircraft that can use a runway in a given time period, as windier weather means longer gaps between taking off and landing are used for safety reasons. Heathrow operates at about 95% capacity, so when we have to slow things down it causes a right mess with the schedules. Sometimes the wind is too strong in the wrong direction for us to land, but not often. This weather here, the storms last February, I flew from Heathrow to Glasgow and back twice. I kept hoping the weather would be too bad and I would get an early hometime, but no - we kept plodding on and got home late but did all 4 sectors. Often it is more likely that you will be advised not to drive to the airport than we will be told we are not going flying! Oh, well.

Thank you wonderful weather forecaster!

There was a fab article in Weather on that issue recently BackinThebox, complete with wind speeds and direction of wind and how that impacts the different airports with different levels of capacity and the direction of their runways.

I can see the planes coming in from the East, to land at Edinburgh. I've only seen a lack of planes when it's 90mph + gusts. Mind you, they do sometimes seem to be going really slowly. I once landed at Keflavik in Iceland, thinking the pilot had done a rather shite landing until I stepped out of the airport into wind I couldn't stand up in. ( then spent the next day clinging on to my horse's saddle, trying not to get blown off ).

Currently 0C, frosty and calm.