| The Great
Storm of 1987 |
|
| Data |
| Formed: |
October 15, 1987 |
| Dissipated: |
October 16, 1987 |
| Lowest pressure: |
953 mbar (hPa) |
| Highest winds |
216 km/h (134 mph) |
| Countries affected |
France |
United Kingdom |
| Effects |
| Fatalities: |
22 |
| Damages: |
US$7.3 billion |
The
Great Storm of 1987 occurred on the night of 15/16
October 1987, when an unusually strong weather system caused winds
to hit much of southern England and
northern France.
It was the
worst storm to hit England since the Great Storm of 1703
(284 years earlier) and was responsible for the
deaths of at least 22 people in England and France combined
(18 in England, at least 4 in France).
According to the
Beaufort scale of
wind intensities, this
storm had
winds of hurricane force; however, the term
hurricane refers to
tropical cyclones originating in the North
Atlantic or North Pacific. Hurricanes have a very different wind
profile and distribution to storms, and significantly higher
precipitation levels. The storm had an air pressure equal to that
of a Category 3 hurricane, and wind speeds equal to a
Category 1 hurricane on the
Saffir-Simpson Hurricane
Scale.
The storm was declared a rare event, expected to happen only once
every several hundred years. However, the
Burns' Day storm hit the United Kingdom in
January 1990, less than three years later and with comparable
intensity.
Origins
Four or five days before the storm struck, forecasters had
predicted bad weather on the following Thursday or Friday. By
midweek, however, guidance from
weather prediction models was somewhat
equivocal.
Instead of stormy weather over a considerable
part of the UK, the models suggested that severe weather would
reach no farther north than the English Channel
and coastal parts of southern England.During
the afternoon of 15 October, winds were very light over most parts
of the UK. The pressure gradient was slack. A depression was
drifting slowly northwards over the North Sea off eastern Scotland.
A
col lay over England, Wales
and Ireland.
Over the Bay of Biscay
, a depression was developing.The first gale
warnings for sea areas in the English Channel were issued at 0630
UTC on 15 October and were followed, four hours later, by warnings
of severe gales.At 1200 UTC on 15 October, the depression which
originated in the Bay of Biscay was centred near 46° N, 9° W and
its depth was 970 mb. By 1800 UTC, it had moved north-east to about
47° N, 6° W, and deepened to 964 mb.At 2235 UTC, winds of
Force 10 were forecast. By midnight, the depression
was over the western English Channel, and its central pressure was
953 mb. At 0140 on 16 October, warnings of Force 11 were issued.
The
depression now moved rapidly north-east, filling a little as it
did, reaching the Humber
estuary
at about 0530 UTC, by which time its central
pressure was 959 mb. Dramatic increases in temperature were
associated with the passage of the storm's warm front.It is now
clear that for sea areas, warnings of severe weather were both
timely and adequate, although forecasts for land areas left much to
be desired.During the evening of 15 October, radio and TV forecasts
mentioned strong winds, but indicated that heavy rain would be the
main feature, rather than wind. By the time most people went to
bed, exceptionally strong winds had not been mentioned in national
radio and TV weather broadcasts.
Warnings of severe weather had been issued,
however, to various agencies and emergency authorities, including
the London Fire
Brigade
. Perhaps the most important warning was
issued by the Met Office to the
Ministry of Defence at
0135 UTC, 16 October. It warned that the anticipated consequences
of the storm were such that civil authorities might need to call on
assistance from the military.In south-east England, where the
greatest damage occurred, gusts of 70 knots or more were recorded
continually for three or four consecutive hours.During this time,
the wind veered from southerly to south-westerly. To the north-west
of this region, there were two maxima in gust speeds, separated by
a period of lower wind speeds. During the first period, the wind
direction was southerly. During the latter, it was south-westerly.
Damage patterns in south-east England suggested that whirlwinds
accompanied the storm.
Effects
England
Storm damage in England
The storm
made landfall in Cornwall
, before
tracking northeast towards Devon
and then
over the Midlands
, going out to sea via The Wash
. The strongest gusts, of up to , were recorded
along the south-eastern edge of the storm, hitting mainly Essex and Kent
.
The storm
caused substantial damage over much of England, downing some
15 million trees (including six of the seven famous oak trees
in Sevenoaks
, historic trees in Kew Gardens
, Wakehurst Place,
Nymans Garden, Hyde
Park
, London and Scotney Castle
and most of the trees making up Chanctonbury
Ring
), blocking roads and railways and leaving
widespread structural damage to buildings. Several hundred
thousand people were left without power, which was not fully
restored until more than two weeks later. Local electric utility
officials later said they lost more wires in that one storm than in
the entire preceding decade.
At sea, as well as many small boats being
wrecked, a ship capsized at Dover
and a
Sealink cross-channel ferry, the MV
Hengist, was driven ashore at Folkestone
. When the storm was at its most intense
(stage 3), whales were blown onto dry land, with some being blown
over 5 miles before crashing to earth, causing yet more
damage.
In London, many of the
plane trees
lining the streets were blown down overnight, blocking roads and
crushing parked cars. Building construction scaffolding and
billboards had collapsed in many places, and many buildings had
been damaged.
The following morning, the BBC
Television Centre
in White City
was unable to function due to a power failure, and
BBC1's Breakfast
Time programme was broadcast from a single-position emergency
studio in central London, reinforcing an impression of national
emergency. Much of the public transport in the capital was
not functioning, and people were advised against trying to go to
work.
The storm cost the insurance industry £2bn, making it the second
most expensive UK weather event on record. Peak wind velocities
were in the early hours of the morning, which probably reduced the
death toll.
The highest recorded windspeed (gust) was at
Gorleston
in Norfolk.
The storm
hit the Isle of
Wight
at 2am, and Shanklin
Pier on the south-east coast of the island was
broken into three pieces as a result of mountainous waves.
Plans to rebuild the pier were soon abandoned, and the rest of the
pier was demolished by contractors shortly afterwards. A monument
now stands in front of what used to be the pier entrance.
France
The
départements of Finistère, Morbihan, Côtes-d’Armor and
Ille-et-Vilaine in Brittany, and the
Cotentin
Peninsula
(départements of Manche and part of Calvados) in
Normandy were the areas in France most
affected by the storm, which followed a line from Morbihan and
Rennes to Deauville. 1.79 million homes were left without
electricity supply and water, and a quarter of Brittany's
forest was destroyed. The total damage was estimated
at
₣23 billion.
Météo France announced " " (a
little storm coming in from the Azores), which reached Brittany's
coast at about 6pm, later than expected. This depression caused
little damage, with only winds.
A much deeper depression hit Ushant
on the
extreme western tip of Brittany at midnight. It was measured at
948 hPa (or 948 mb) at the Brest
-Guipavas
weather station, the lowest reading since the station's creation in
1945. Weather stations on the coast at pointe du Raz
, pointe Saint-Mathieu
and Penmarch gave no
readings, as they were damaged by the high winds. was the
wind speed measured at Brest. The centre of the storm crossed
Brittany from
Penmarch to
Saint-Brieuc at , with gusts of wind up to at
Quimper, at Ouessant and at
la pointe de Penmarch and
Granville.
Waves
were measured at off Ushant and Belle Île
.
Despite the rarity of this kind of storm, similar strength storms
hit France again in 1990 (Tempête Vivian) and twice in December
1999.
The church at
Concarneau was damaged but
never rebuilt, and was finally demolished a few years later.
Criticism of the Met Office
In the immediate aftermath, the
Met
Office was severely criticized by journalists for failing to
forecast the storm correctly. Interviewing a dishevelled
Ian McCaskill on
BBC News on 16
October 1987, the newsreader
Michael
Buerk made the remark
"a fat lot of good you guys were last
night", which was typical of the media response at the
time.
The Met Office conducted an internal inquiry, scrutinised by two
independent assessors, and a number of recommendations were made.
Chiefly, observational coverage of the atmosphere over the ocean to
the south and west of the UK was improved by increasing the quality
and quantity of observations from ships, aircraft, buoys and
satellites. Continued refinements were made to the computer models
used in forecasting, and changes were made in the training of
forecasters. In addition, reforms in the way the
Met Office reports warnings of severe weather
were implemented, leading to substantially more warnings being
issued in the future. Further deployment of improved tracking
devices and improvements in the computer model simulations were
supported by the purchase of an additional
Cray
supercomputer. Warnings for the
Burns' Day storm three years later
were accurate and on time.
BBC meteorologist
Michael Fish drew particular criticism
for reporting several hours before the storm hit, seemingly
flippantly:
Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC
and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way; well, if
you're watching, don't worry, there isn't, but having said that,
actually, the weather will become very windy, but most of the
strong winds, incidentally, will be down over Spain and across into
France.
Fish has
subsequently claimed that his comments about a hurricane had
nothing to do with the UK; they referred to Florida
, USA, and were linked to a news story immediately
precededing the weather bulletin, but had been so widely repeated
out of context that the British public remains convinced that he
was referring to the approaching storm. According to Michael
Fish, the woman in question was actually a colleague's mother who
was about to go on holiday in the Caribbean, and had called
regarding
Hurricane Floyd to
see if it would be safe to travel.
Fish went
on to warn viewers in the UK to "batten down the hatches", saying
it would be "very windy" across the south of England, but predicted
that the storm would move further south along the English
Channel and the British mainland would escape the worst
effects. The remainder of his warning is frequently left out
of re-runs, which only adds to the public's misconception of that
evening's forecasting. His analysis has been defended by weather
experts.
In particular, the lack of a weather ship
in the Southwest Approaches, due to Met Office cutbacks, meant the only manner of
tracking the storm was by using satellite data, as automatic buoy had not been deployed at the
time.
Ironically, earlier forecasts as far back as the preceding weekend
had correctly identified that gale force winds would affect
Southern England. However, later runs of the model had indicated a
more southerly track for the low pressure system, incorrectly
indicating that the strongest winds would be confined to Northern
and Central France. Interestingly enough, the French meteorological
office used a different computer weather model to the British, and
the French model proved more accurate in predicting the severity of
the storm in the Channel.
Aftermath
A great deal of effort and money was put into the post-storm
"clean-up", when in hindsight it could have been better to simply
let nature re-assert itself. A few people, such as the writer
Oliver Rackham and the charity
Common Ground were active in
trying to prevent unnecessary destruction of trees which, although
fallen, were still living.
See also
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