[Kitchen Cottage]

Firstly .... I don't understand wind mph.  On the BBC, its between 29 and 33 at its worst where I live.... on the Daily Hate website, its 54mph.  What's that all about?    I've got equivalent to the one we had in November here.  Some guttering down and so far that's it.....  The wind is on a downward path but still blowy.

What's it like in mph where you are at its worst?  I burnt my house down in 2007 and live in fear of another catastrophic event because I remember the stress.... so I am counting my blessings and thinking of you all.

 

[mojocafa]

I take more notice of wind speeds since my son started to work on a boat in North Sea. He has been away for the past 6 weeks, when we have had the strongest gales, but he appears to be enjoying it. He was telling us that when in bed if the boat is crashing up and down through the waves he slides up and down and he bangs his feet, bangs his head, if its rocking back and forth, he has to put stuff under his mattress creating a curve so he doesn't roll out the bed.

So although I hear the wind whistling through windows, I'm grateful that my beds not rocking & rolling. 

[Clarebelle]

I'm not sure how fast the wind got here last night but it was loud enough to keep waking me up whenever a large gust blew! the BBC news site reckons it is 23mph here this morning in west midlands which isnt too bad. We have been quite lucky here, although we have had lots of wind and rain, we seem to be getting only the tail end of the storms.

On another storm related note, I was disappointed to read an news article this morning about two walkers who had to be rescued from ben nevis when they become lost in bad weather. I would have thought people would have more sense than to risk themselves and those on the rescue teams, its not like we didnt have advanced warning of the bad weather.

[john and helen]

we where getting about 75-80 mph last night, but we do face southwest and face the sea.. the tree,s where dancing well …and the fence was doing a mexican wave…but living halfway up a hill, we don't suffer flooding, the south facing wall has suffered a jet wash effect and the walls have let water soak through…seeing there hasn't been much of a break in the weather….

i do feel sorry for those who actually get flooded though,,,fences, and garden stuff can be easily replaced..a flooded house can take months to dry out

[plumseverywhere]

We live top of a steep hill - we were hit by 80mph gusts. Lost power at 1am, its just returned about 3pm.  Worst part was trying to keep my disabled mum warm, duvet - hat - scarf and plantd her in front of our log fire.   I feel for those who've lost power for days, those who are flooded out downstairs (just 15 miles away is worcester where OH's family live, its been pretty rubbish there for days flooding wise)
hopefully soon this will all be over. Tomorrow is a day for repairing fences, many blown down. thank goodness goats and sheep all ok, couldnt' wait for daylight to check them all, up from 1am due to trees hitting the windows and power lines swinging.

[Greenerlife]

I went into London yesterday evening and they cancelled all our trains back (took them an hour to tell us). £125 taxi ride later....


Got in at half past one after a terrible "sideways down the A3".  never been on a road that was being so battered by the wind - even the cabbie was scared.

[lord flynn]

I find the BBC woefully underestimates wind speed. It depends where the local weather station is-Metoffice is generally more accurate although we have our own weather station now. We're on a hill in westish Scotland, we regularly get winds of 40-55 mph with gusts of up to 70mph and rarely get a 'severe' weather warning for it. Gusts of up to 60mph seem to be completely normal. We're currently at 35mph and it feels dead calm. Our power lines are underground though, which helps. The storm on Dec 5th was 95mph.


flooding is the worst, the filth and the stink of it are awful. when I was a kid we flooded out one July in a massive summer storm-took 8weeks to dry the house out in a hot summer with industrial dehumidifiers in it.

[devonlad]

so nice to be able to open the back door tonight without almost having it ripped from your hands. I know us brits love to talk about the weather but bloody hell !!!!!!!!!!!!!! lost several slates last night but worst of all managed to lose our favourite chicken "Hen" the first chicken we ever bought. wife's been kicking herself between the tears all day. having battled through floods,  fallen trees and closed roads she got home just as it was getting dark. shut the chooks up in a hurry as she could barely stand up in the wind, only to discover Hen laying dead outside the henhouse door this morning. Not for the first time "bloody weather"

[sabrina]

Its quite common for us to get 80 miles per hour winds in the winter. Animals are kept in and anything that might take off gets moved. You get used to it. We always take extra care with bad weather.

[benkt]

BBC was saying it was 30-35mph round our way but as our field is completely exposed to the south, we suffered a lot of damage - some pics on our FB  page https://www.facebook.com/HempsalsCommunityFarm
We lost two chickens whose coop was destroyed by the wind and appear to be have been taken by a fox - found one body other presumably taken home by foxy. Bee hive blew over, couple of pig arks lost bits of tin roof and almost everything else has been stripped of roofing felt.
We also have a poplar tree at 45 degrees that's only being held up by the phone lines so waiting for BT to come and sort that one out before it takes down our phone and internet - might be a long wait as I'm guessing they're pretty busy!

[Castle Farm]

Aberystwyth beach 10am yesterday.

[cloddopper]

Don't blame the BBC for the inaccurate wind speed /weather figures ..most of their weather programes are recorded many hours earlier using  what was then already old data.
 

If you want  some up-to-date  stuff look for the 1/2 hr. readings from the weather buoys  out in the seas around the UK or USA government weather stations.
Most  UK Surfing websites often carry good weather sites to use.

Re what is the wind speed thing .
Look up, " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale  "

Some of the explanations ,especially the WIKKI one are fairly good explanations.

The pictures in the Wikki link are good ..... click on them , a force 9 progressing  to force 10 is a bit more than  butterfly's in the bum exhilarating , if you're out and about in a flat bottomed ship in the middle of the North sea at night .