The Boxing Day Storm of 1998
By Paul Homewood
The 1980s and 90s were full of storms we have not seen the likes of since. The Great Storm of 1987, Bruar, Burns Day, not to mention others which did not even get named.
But one which has gone under the radar since is the Boxing Day Storm in 1998.
Paul Vogan gave us the basic facts:.
A powerful low battered the UK from early Christmas Eve through 29 December but peaked on Boxing Day with mean winds of 60 mph lasting over 12 hours. The storm underwent rapid cyclogenesis as it departed Ireland and crossed Scotland with a 19mb pressure drop within just 3 hours, bottoming out at 947mb at it’s peak.
Malin Head, Donegal bore the brunt of the strongest winds located on the storm’s southern flank. Sustained winds clocked 77 mph over a 10 minute average with gusts of 110 mph, just 3 mph shy of this site’s strongest ever wind gust of 113 mph set in 1961. Prestwick Airport, Ayrshire recorded a gust of 103 mph while even Glasgow suffered damaging gusts of 93 mph.
http://www.markvoganweather.com/2017/10/24/uk-irelands-most-powerful-storms-of-the-last-34-years/
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Note the winds speeds at Prestwick and Glasgow. Nowadays the Met Office hypes up a gust of 86 mph on a 400 ft clifftop.
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And a Met Office report listed the effects of the storm in Northern Ireland. As in Scotland, 100 mph + winds were widespread at low level sites. In many parts, average wind speeds reached Storm Force 10 on the Beaufort Scale.
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I love to look at some of the news and weather items on TV at the time, and below is a montage of weather forecasts that week in 1998, including good old Michael Fish!
It is a bit repetitive, and in the middle it’s a bit jerky, but it lays out how the forecasts developed over the days leading up to Boxing Day.
What is particularly noteworthy is the run of successive Lows, each bringing wind and rain during the week. Nowadays we are told there is something unusual if we get a week of wet and windy weather!
Watch and enjoy the events of 25 years ago:
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
That was back when we had wx some good some bad. Now we have climate change weekly and will just forget about any kind of history that doesn’t agree. Here in bc we have had a warmer than normal winter so far,kind of the way it was back in the early 90s. But no one will care about that the fact that wx cycles is of no importance to the totally brain washed crowd.
Marvellous text and table for future reference, Paul.
The text from Paul Vogan left me reeling when I came to
“bottoming out …at its peak”.
Yup, my garden fence blew down and I was going to hospital. Not really been so windy since.
But the windy storms of the 80s and 90s could not have been that bad ….they didn’t have storm ‘names’
I remember that one quite clearly. My 80 year old father and I were dodging the falling slates on the way back from the pub in Edinburgh. We decided that hard up against the tenements was best, and made it home without injury. As a retired meteorologist (42 years in the job), his view was that it was “a bit of a rough night”.
I was surprised to find that Isobel Lang is providing weather forecasts on TalkTV.
Same thing happening here in NZ, erroneous weather statistics being reported by Govt sponsored media.
Here’s a wee dose of WX reality. https://realitycheck.radio/podcasts/
A Good New Year and Good Health, especially good health to all
Some fond memories of how matter-of-fact the weather presenters were. No histrionics or over dramatic forecasting. One thing struck me, how would all the wind turbines cope if we had a repeat of these storms?
What happened to the Beaufort scale? Noting that they are giving wind speeds in Km/hr to make things seem worse! https://livecaboradio.blog/2019/01/04/beaufort-scale-on-wind-speeds/
What the table also shows is the old record gusts and when they were set, 1957, 1961, 1974, 1995 & 1997.