Gale Events
Gale events
The graphics on this page show the time series of hourly mean wind speed (grey area), wind direction (arrows), and air pressure at sea level (line) for selected gale events. The wind data are from a 10m mast which was located in Clocaenog forest. The pressure data are from the Meteorological Office station in Rhyl. The animations use the infrared channel of the Meteosat satellite.
8th January 2005 - Gudrun
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This storm was named Erwin by the German Weather Service (DWD) but is better known as Gudrun in Scandinavian countries. The storm devastated wide forested areas in Sweden. The amount of wind damaged timber equalled the harvesting of one year. Huge efforts were undertaken to salvage the wind blown timber quickly to avoid the outbreak of insect pests.
At the 10m mast in Clocaenog the maximum hourly wind speed and gust wind speed were 16.2 ms-1 and 27.0 ms-1 respectively.
11th January 2005
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Only three days after the 8th of January Britain got hit by another gale, which was even more severe. The highest wind speeds were measured on the Hebrids in Scotland. Gust wind speeds over 100 miles were measured in Barra (106 mph) and Stornoway (101 mph). A family of five was killed when their car was swept away. Wide areas were cut off from the main grid for several hours.
The track of the low pressure centrum passed northwards of Wales and Ireland. Although the devastation the gale caused was bigger than the one from the 8th of January the wind speed values in Clocaenog were smaller. Mean hourly wind speed reached 12.9 ms-1 with maximum gusts up to 23.0 ms-1.
13th February 2005
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18th January 2007 - Kyrill
This storm was named Kyrill and caused damage over the whole of Europe and killed more than 40 people.
The 10m mast was dismantled in autumn 2006. Thus there are no data from Clocaenog available for this gale event. The time series in the above figure are from the Meteorological Office station in Rhyl. However, we can assume that the wind speed was similar in Clocaenog and exceeded the one measured on the 8th of January 2005. In Rhyl the maximum hourly mean wind speed and maximum gust speed were 17.8 ms-1 and 36.0 ms-1, respectively.
Credit
The meteorological data from the station in Rhyl were supplied by the Meteorological Office. Satellite images courtesy of EUMETSAT.