h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

According to weather forecasters, we are due to get hit by a bad storm later today. The last time this happened was Christmas Day, 1997. It was a miserable day for many people as the electricity was knocked out all over the place, walls, trees and roof slates were strewn everywhere, and Christmas meals were completely ruined for many.

It's pretty quiet at the moment - occasional torrential rain however. The wind is due to pick up in the afternoon.

Well its a bit of a misrable day here (Wolverhampton England) but then we are used to then

manda

The forecast is for winds 70 - 80 mph.

I'm currently reading a particularly interesting article on past winds in Ireland, dating back to 1715...

http://www.ucd.ie/gsi/pdf/33-1/wind.pdf

Woodpigeon

It wont let me read that

manda

Hi Manda,

Type in "storm dublin 1715" into Google (no quotes)

You will see the item "A three-century storm climatology for Dublin 1715-2000". If you don't have Adobe Acrobat, you can view it as HTML.

Woodpigeon

I have got Adobe Acrobat on disc, but I am having problems with my PC

I am having another PC tomorow so I will have to look then

manda

It's beginning to blow up a bit now. There's a lot of rain starting to fall.

Alright - it's getting a bit nasty out there. I'm off home. I'll try to log on again a bit later.

Already we have had a power cut - at 6.30, just when I was about to prepare dinner. The wind seemed to calm down for a while but it is beginning to gain strength again.

Here in Dublin, the storm seems to have passed us by, although they say it may pick up again later. All we've got are a few twigs on the ground.

The storm's heading our way, The Clyde Valley, apparantly, but, thankfully it's not here yet. It's just wet and a bit windy. I think, by the sounds of things, we'll need to batten down the hatches I hate gales, freaks me right out!

I hope your power, and such like is back on Woodpigeon, and there's no wind-damage and you're all ?

Prideth

We had another brief power outage at 9.00, but no more problems after that. It wasn't as bad as expected at all. Just a very blustery night.

It's still quite windy out there, but the worst is over. I expect it may not be the last one this winter...

Woodpigeon

glad to hear things have settled down for you now. it's getting more blustery here now. The letterbox has started rattling like mad,etc. ....I hope we don't have power cuts and such!

Hiya Woodpigeon, everyone "waves"

christmas day '97? i remember a storm we had on christmas day, was it '97 though? not sure 1990 something..we had a power cut from mid morning till around 9 in the evening, fortunately we went to the hotel, and we had christmas dinner there, as i 'dont' recall i later got smashed lol was great

when was this recent storm then? 2 weeks ago? geesh must of missed it, wonder what i was doing? erm well i wasnt getting lol maybe i slept through it, take more than a storm to stir me when im lol

Hi IV,

No, it wasn't that bad after all - a bit of a false alarm. We had some high winds, but nothing like the 1997 storm.

Weather today is smashing though - are we sure it's Winter?

Woodpigeon

Hi Woodpigeon,

yesterday? it was raining here most of the day, i dont mind the rain though

false alarm the other day? well thats a relief cos whenever people say to me things like, woah see that storm the other day and i have no clues as to what theyre talking about well, makes you wonder where my mind is doesnt it lol

Or it makes you wonder where my mind is. These days it seems to be wandering everywhere!

Woodpigeon

yes but your excused (temporarily) at the moment id be surprised if your mind wasnt everywhere lol