Re: Storm Tossed !

Well here's a pic that I posted earlier this year. Taken near my house - not sure what it was..... It was much darker and more defined for a while.

Re: Storm Tossed !

Hurricanes or cyclones - same thing just different geographic locations.

Cyclones rely on heat from the ocean and the rotation of the earth to form they cannot occur outside very well defined latitudes. Something like 5 to 25' north or south of the equator - that is from memory so might not be exactly right.

The UK at 60'N cannot have hurricanes any more than my home at 30"S can, you can have tornadoes but they are nothing like cyclones/hurricanes and generally form over land (but not necessarily) and form for entirely different reasons.

You can have severe storms but never hurricanes. As I said before it is just sloppy press reporting that gives severe storms these incorrect titles like hurricane.

Hurricanes cannot exist over land; once they hit the coast they immediately start to dissipate and become a tropical rain depression dumping massive amounts of water. The severe wind damage only occurs at or near the coast.

Re: Storm Tossed !

That looks like what we call a Willy Willy it is a wind storm formed in a similar way to a tornado but because of milder conditions doesn't really have much power other than to pick up dust.

To be a tornado you need a fierce thunderstorm with updrafts and down drafts in exactly the right places to set the spinning off. They can be very intense and cause localised damage. The weather in your photo looks too clear for this.

We regularly get similar things off the coast causing water spouts but very little power to cause much damage and I have seen them in the deserts of SA but you could walk into them without fear other than getting grit in your eyes and dirty clothes.

I am not an expert on this but have a storm chaser friend who is and I remember a lot of what he tells us

He has a web site here:

http://ozthunder.com/

if you are interested. he spent his holiday this year in the US chasing tornadoes there is probably some film of it at this site.

Re: Storm Tossed !

Wrong Bruce matey!!! - Hurricanes do happen here. Admittedly they tend to start off the East Coast of America or in the Caribbean, but then they are picked up by the Gulf Stream and the jet stream and swept East along the Jet stream and fed by the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. Go look at the Youtube thread I put on here in answer to Audrey's contribution.

Re: Storm Tossed !

I did look and if you check it again the title is:

Hurricane? The Great Storm In England 1987

Note the question mark after the word hurricane. You cannot get hurricanes in 60' latitude. Cyclones cannot form if the sea surface temperature is less than something like 26'C and there is no way the gulf stream off the UK or the north east coast of the USA is anywhere near that temperature. It is simple physics.

You had a severe storm but it was not a hurricane and no amount of wishful thinking on your part will make it so.

Re: Storm Tossed !

Firstly Bruce matey, your navigation is somewhat out, England lies not at 60 o, but 50 o N. Secondly, if you have seen the whole of that video on Youtube, you will have seen that the wind speed indicator on the top of Telecom House recorded a Wind speed of 108 mph before breaking. London is considerably away from (more than 50 miles) from the epicentre of that 'Hurricane', and therefore along the English Channel coast the wind was considerably stronger. According the Beaufort windscale, a Hurricane is such when wind speeds are in excess of 118 mph - which actually occurred at Brighton and Peacehaven. Therefore is WAS a hurricane.

Re: Storm Tossed !

If you say so.