St Jude's Stormwatch (mainly for shandy-drinking southerners)

[Cudzoziemiec]

A bit windy here but nothing unusual for October. Mrs Cudzo said the wind woke her up at 5:22(!) so I guess it's died down, but I don't think it was that strong in any case. Very wet though. Quite a pleasant day even, in an October-ish way.

[Basil]

I had assumed that I wouldn't be cycling in.  But there's not even a breeze, which is a bit wierd. 
Just rather a lot of surface flooding which the drivers were very decent about.  My clear signals of intention and I was shepherded past every time. 

[Illegal Combat Ant]

I'm pleased to say that everything here is ship-shape and we can still look forward to a decent autumn display from the trees. If anything happened I slept through it soundly.

[IanDG]

I'm expecting this http://youtu.be/H8qgjyqibwY?t=46s

That's Windy's commute.

You need panniers full of bricks when it's like that. Force 7 a common occurrence- 100mph not so common but bloody scary when your windows are bowing under the force of the wind - hope all you southerners are OK

Lovely calm morning here btw.

[TimC]

Gusting 50-60 mph outside right now. Just had the first power cut of the day (we usually suffer several in windy weather).

And then it was gone: twenty minutes of fairly seriously strong winds, and now it's just normally windy. Very rare I can hear the wind in my house (thatched), but I certainly could this morning. It was strong enough that there will be several bits of tree scattered where they shouldn't be, and maybe a few whole trees down too.

Now, to some serious lying-in and worrying about stuff later...

[clarion]

Big tree blown down at the top of our street - two cars badly damaged.  Both were parked, though, so probably no injuries.  I flagged down some motorists to let them know; others just sped on by.  Dickheads.

I'm Wallington, a satellite dish had been blown down from the front of a pub.

No trains till at least 0900 here.  I took the bis and am sat on a tube train waiting to depart.  Reports of the Northern Line are good, so should get to work ok.

[andrewc]

A colleague who lives in Kent has had his car crushed by a fallen tree.

It's raining up here, but no appreciable wind.

[perpetual dan]

I was woken at some point by whistling phone lines, but everything I see from the window is more or less where I left it last night. Mrs Dan rode to work.

[Andrij]

My high street is littered with pieces of shop signs.

Tube was busy, but bearable.  With trains not running, the City is dead quiet this morning.

[PaulR]

Having listened to the wind early this morning, I opted for the bus today, and was glad to have had the foresight to walk to an upstream bus stop, as the driver was not letting any more miserable people onto his bus when he reached the usual stop outside our local wetherspoons.  A few small trees and big branches down on the route into town, but by 8 it seemed to be back to a normal breezy morning.  Not looking forward to the journey home - I even toyed with the idea of buying another bike to ride home, rather than battling with public transport.

Son #2 is trying to get to Durham this morning - I'm hoping he'll buy a decent novel at Kings Cross and await transport.

[LEE]

A big branch of my Sycamore tree is lying on the lawn but I slept through it.

Amazingly my rather exposed 6ft fence panels are all still there and it doesn't take much to blow those out.

FYI. I am 50km due North of the Isle of Wight.  Looks slightly breezy right now.

[Illegal Combat Ant]

In these days of international conflict it is heart warming indeed to see that all nations have suspended the possibility of anything happening so that the BBC can give its full undivided attention to it being a bit blustery in the south.

[clarion]

The tube was so busy I couldn't get off at my station.  Kings Cross is closed because of overcrowding.

[Bledlow]

Woken at 6am by weather-related noises off, but nothing serious.

Bins blown over (& not only ours), but we'd taped the lids down, so no scattered rubbish. Leaves & brash on the ground. A couple of bigger branches down along Wokingham Road.

The Met Office was about right, methinks, & the Daily Excess & other purveyors of shite were, as usual, talking bollocks. It wasn't the storm of the century, or the worst since 1987, as they predicted. it was similar to storms we had in 2000, 2007 & 2008, as the Met Office said it would be. A once in five years storm, at most. A bit of disruption, but it'll mostly be sorted out by tomorrow.

University weather station recorded max gust of 89.3 km/h last night, or 55.5 mph.

[clarion]

I am informed there is a tree on the tracks at Balham, which might explain the ridiculous overcrowding on the tube.

I have seen a shed balanced sideways on a fence, jammed into a tree, on Borough High St, it's gridlock for motor traffic, and there are many fewer cyclists than normal.  Other than that, it's just a normal windy day here in Central London.

[andygates]

Lorra lorra trees; the tree clearance fairies have been busy all night down here.

[tiermat]

Meanwhile, 60 miles North of that London.

It's just a normal Autmn day, started out wet, a little chilly (and blustery) but now sunny.

Roads were busier than expected, especially due to it being half term, but that can be accounted for by the train disruption.

The 3 hour drive down here was marked, not by high winds, but by excess water on the A1.  All in all nothing to panic about.  Move along now, nothing to see here

[cycleman]

1 full milk bottle broken and a couple of bent door hinges at around 6.30 am and so me wet stuff earlier in the night . now fairly quiet . much ado about nothing again

[ferret]

This is the only saint jude I know about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZIiJWivByE

as for the weather typical welsh October day wet and windy

[Jaded]

Storm? What storm? 

[spesh]

Pfffft. The remains of a garden parasol that was previously on top of next door's shed are now just in front of my shed.

If you ask me, it's all been somewhat overblown...

[urban_biker]

1 full milk bottle broken and a couple of bent door hinges at around 6.30 am and so me wet stuff earlier in the night . now fairly quiet . much ado about nothing again

Milk bottle? You get milk delivered in glass bottles? Now there's something to marvel at

[Ewan Houzami]

^ see what he did there etc...?

Sitrep: One fledgling pot of thyme blown off my 2nd floor windowsill, and at peak gustiness a bird feeder briefly troubled a bedroom window. Thankfully, I appear to still be alive.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Thunder and hail in Bristol now!

[mcshroom]

The storm has led me to do a bit of interrogating of our work weather station data for a bit of context.

Ok the measurements are taken at 10m and are facing the sea directly, but we get gusts of wind over 50mph a little more than once every ten days, and gusts top 90mph once every 3 years 1-2 days per year and are >100mph once every 4 years just under one day a year*.

Maximum recorded wind speed (gust) on our weather station tower is apparently 131.5mph




* Edited, a year has 365 days not 100