Hurricane Ophelia.....

[TTmonkey]

Currently forecast to miss the mainland U.K., and to weaken, but just a little change of track to the south and things could get very interesting on Monday/Tuesday.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at2+shtml...

Where's Michael Fish when you need him? Funny how this is 30 years exactly since 'the great storm''.

With most of the leaves still on the trees even a strong storm could cause major Problems. Fallen trees and blocked drains from the leaves causing flooding.

[TTmonkey]

citizensm1th said:

I was listening to a fella on the gardening program on radio 4 yesterday and he was saying that we have a much more varied tree coverage age wise these days thanks to the great storm

he was postulating that this would make any repeat less damaging as we do not have large stands of similar aged trees acting as giant wind breaks

still i love a good storm so next week should be fun

I was at RAF Northolt when the last storm hit. The place, unusual for an RAF station, had about 100 major trees on site. They all came down. A massive oak fell between two single man barrack blocks, right outside my room. My windows were left open that night as it was so humid and warm, and when I woke up my room was full of leaves. I slept right through the storm and didn't know what happened, as I was pissed up that evening due to a beer call. I thought my mates had trashed my room!

When I looked out the window and saw that oak tree smashed outside, my first thought was "what the fek did I do last night"!

Can't believe I missed that night due to beer....

[TTmonkey]

Great picture.

What must be remembered is that these forecasts are just best guess work. IRMA showed how unpredictable these things can be, she jinked all over the place and most forecasts was for Bahamas and eastern seaboard, which turned out wrong. And that's tracking hurricanes that go through ththe Caribbean all the time. How many come east in the Atlantic? Not many.

[TTmonkey]

Gandahar said:

TTmonkey said:

Great picture.

What must be remembered is that these forecasts are just best guess work. IRMA showed how unpredictable these things can be, she jinked all over the place and most forecasts was for Bahamas and eastern seaboard, which turned out wrong. And that's tracking hurricanes that go through ththe Caribbean all the time. How many come east in the Atlantic? Not many.

Good point, was thinking the same myself, this is the strongest storm this far east in the Atlantic, so models will be learning as they go along to some extent I think.

Forecasters are very confident that it will miss the UK and downgrade to a storm rather than hurricane before hitting the west coast of Ireland. I'm surprised that more contingency planning isn't happening for a 'what if' scenario. What if it doesn't stay on that track and instead slips up the east coast of Ireland? What if it doesn't lose its hurricane strength?

Michael Fish moment is possible. Unlikely by the look of it, but possible.

I wouldn't was to be in Cornwall on Monday if it does make a sudden swing to the right.

[TTmonkey]

Puggit said:

bridgdav said:

Michael fish was on the BBC earlier... he said that there wouldn’t be a hurricane, just high winds and rain.. why wouldn’t you believe him..?

He was right. It wasn't a hurricane 30 years ago and it isn't a hurricane today.

30 years ago it was a sting jet that caused the damage. Radar imagery shows a sting jet is highly likely today:

https://twitter.com/MattHugo81/status/919813302036...

The big issue Michael Fish had was that a warning of severe weather and damage had come from French forecasters hours before anything happened in the UK, and he downplayed it significantly. He only references 'some woman called in' but he didn't take into account warnings from other professional sources. Yes the term Hurricane was used and that was incorrect, but the weather forecast that he gave at 10pm totally dissed and downplayed the warnings that had been given by other forecasters. He cant claim to have been 'right' about the lack of a Hurricane when what we saw that night was massive destruction and the loss lives that he had not forecast despite warnings from other sources. He didn't just ignore them, he specifically said they were incorrect and that we'd only get some rain...... and that it would be very windy, but that would be in Spain and northern France

French weather forecasters correctly assessed the impact 18 hours before the storm hit. If they could do it, why couldn't British forecasters? They specifically said that the southern UK would be hit be severe winds. France actually suffered more damage than the UK did, but at least they forecast the trouble.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnxjZ-aFkjs

Fish has made various excuses for what he said in the forecast, from claiming that he wasn't even talking about UK weather when referencing this 'Hurricane', claiming there was in fact no call from 'some woman', and also contradicting his claims over time. He would have been better to stand up and say they got it wrong due to factors such as cutbacks and lack of investment.