RED WARNING for extreme wind, UK Feb 2022

[adam2]

Has been issued for parts of the southwest, and an amber warning for a much larger area.
Stay safe, be careful.
In particular consider securing or bringing indoors outdoor furniture and other items.

Power failures are likely. As are large numbers of downed trees. Extreme waves resulting in coastal flooding are expected.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/warnings/weather

[clv101]

The extent of this storm, over the relatively vulnerable south of England suggest this is going to have a really high impact. Structure of this storm also suggests sting jets are possible, short lived, localised areas of significantly higher surface wind speeds.

[emordnilap]

Storm Dudley has just passed us, Wednesday 16 Feb 2022 from mid-afternoon to early morning Thursday.

We suffered no damage but a power cut was caused by an electricity pole "burnt out" according to a neighbour. The pole was replaced by 12 noon Thursday and power restored almost immediately.

We are relatively stoic about short power cuts. We have stored drinking water, butane cooking, plenty of headtorches and lanterns, reading lights that are charged during the day, good insulation, plenty of food, wood for the fire. This is just normal. Several people locally drove into town today to sit in cafés, keeping warm and charging their phones.

A charged mobile phone power bank or two would be a useful prep.

Storm Eunice is due to hit us today, after a welcome hiatus in the weather where we got out to exercise. Take care, folks.

[adam2]

BREAKING NEWS.
A second red weather warning has now been issued for London and the South East, a larger and more populous area than that covered by the previously issued warning for parts of the South West.

This warning implies risk to life, and significant disruption. Details from news media of your choice.

[clv101]

BREAKING NEWS.
A second red weather warning has now been issued for London and the South East, a larger and more populous area than that covered by the previously issued warning for parts of the South West.

This warning implies risk to life, and significant disruption. Details from news media of your choice.

Yes, Met Office have made a mistake with this. The red warning was justified in the South East yesterday, issuing the warning at 3:44 am is too late, it should and could have been issued 12 hours earlier.

[UndercoverElephant]

It is not that bad in Hastings at the moment. It's windy, but not once-in-a-decade windy. But it isn't going to have to get much worse for the gusts to be extreme.

EDIT: we just lost the power for 10 minutes, then it came back on again.

[adam2]

Very odd here, high winds as forecast, but also snow which melts almost instantly.
A couple of short power cuts but nothing major.

[emordnilap]

Storm Eunice wasn't as bad as some storms we've had in the past. No damage here, reports of some trees down, some without power, to be expected. Still, better being over-the-top than lulling a false sense of security.

More gusts and hail predicted. Is it February, after all.

[clv101]

Looking like the south coast of England will see the highest speeds around lunch, early afternoon.

[UndercoverElephant]

Total chaos in Asda. We just had two short power cuts in quick succession. Power went off for about 5 minutes, then came back on again for a 2 or 3 minutes, then went off again for another 5 minutes. I went to my local Asda when it came back the second time. At first they weren't letting people in, then they opened the doors because it seemed the power was back for good. But it was chaos at the tills. The problem was that all of their computer systems were broken. None of the tills were taking card payments, but there were also loads of other problems. This shop has 4 different sections to pay - old style checkouts, scan-as-you-go, basket self-checkouts and trolley self-checkouts. Nearly all of the tills were malfunctioning, but all in different ways. Some claimed their scales had failed, some were failing to recognise some items, some just hadn't rebooted properly - different error messages on each one.

I wonder if it was the double-whammy that did it. The systems must be designed to survive the power shutting off once, but what then happens if they are still in the process of trying to recover themselves when the power shuts off again?

[adam2]

They should have had a UPS that worked.

[Stumuz2]

Strange here on Anglesey.
Got up at 7am to perfect blue skies and a gentle breeze, was expecting very heavy winds.
Suddenly at 12.30pm strong winds, but nothing out of the usual. I would say 50-60mph gusts.
Then calm. weird.

[Potemkin Villager]

Pretty average winter weather for February. The media hysteria is insane and the
ghouls seem disappointed as usual that the damage is much less than hoped for.

[UndercoverElephant]

Pretty average winter weather for February. The media hysteria is insane and the
ghouls seem disappointed as usual that the damage is much less than hoped for.

There's going to be quite a lot of damage in south-east England. Lots of trees down, for sure. But it is not on the same scale of the Great Storm of '87.

[clv101]

The Millennium dome is in bad shape, interestingly the roof is 24 years old and was expected to last ~25 years!

Friend of ours has their car flattened by a tree.