Wind Speeds At Bingley
By Paul Homewood
Most of the public probably believes that storms are getting more powerful, despite the Met Office stating the opposite to be the case.
This is inevitable given of the media coverage nowadays, amplified by giving every bit of windy weather a silly name.
The Met Office archives contain detailed monthly reports, starting in 1884 and ending in 1993. These contain daily data of wind speeds as well as other weather data at a number of stations across the UK. Since 1993 the Met Office have quite disgracefully discontinued this practice.
Lacking any data since 1993 has made it difficult to analyse trends in wind speeds, so I asked the Met Office to provide a list of the highest wind speeds each year at Bingley, nr Bradford. It’s only one location, but is nevertheless a representative of a good chunk of England. I have plotted the results below, and they could not clearer:
We can see that not only the 1990s saw winds much stronger than any in recent times, but the 1970s as well.
To pick out a few highlights:
- The highest gust was 78 kts (90mph) on 13th Jan 1984. That month is not as well known as some others, but it saw some of the highest gusts ever recorded, and not just on that day.
- 15th December 1982 saw winds of 75 kts at Bingley, the same speed as the ones on the Boxing Day storm in 1997.
- The Burns Day storm recorded 70 kts, an indication of just how bad those other storms were.
- 24th January 1993 wind speeds of 69 kts at Bingley, the same storm that brought 82 kt winds to Leeds
- By comparison, the highest gust this year and last was 57 kts.
It is only one location, but the data is consistent with everything else we know from Met Office reports and analyses, along with contemporary reporting.
The full table is below.
| 1973 | 70 |
| 1974 | 66 |
| 1975 | 62 |
| 1976 | 70 |
| 1977 | 63 |
| 1978 | 66 |
| 1979 | 61 |
| 1980 | 58 |
| 1981 | 63 |
| 1982 | 75 |
| 1983 | 60 |
| 1984 | 78 |
| 1985 | 49 |
| 1986 | 53 |
| 1987 | 57 |
| 1988 | 56 |
| 1989 | 57 |
| 1990 | 70 |
| 1991 | 67 |
| 1992 | 63 |
| 1993 | 69 |
| 1994 | 61 |
| 1995 | 65 |
| 1996 | 61 |
| 1997 | 75 |
| 1998 | 62 |
| 1999 | 66 |
| 2000 | 62 |
| 2001 | 53 |
| 2002 | 57 |
| 2003 | 47 |
| 2004 | 55 |
| 2005 | 65 |
| 2006 | 50 |
| 2007 | 64 |
| 2008 | 59 |
| 2009 | 55 |
| 2010 | 54 |
| 2011 | 57 |
| 2012 | 52 |
| 2013 | 54 |
| 2014 | 57 |
| 2015 | 53 |
| 2016 | 49 |
| 2017 | 55 |
| 2018 | 48 |
| 2019 | 53 |
| 2020 | 52 |
| 2021 | 45 |
| 2022 | 54 |
| 2023 | 55 |
| 2024 | 51 |
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The preoccupation with gusts is misplaced. Wind speed is measured as a 10min average at 10m above ground normally. The wind is turbulent and can’t be measured everywhere. So if you happen to have an anemometer where there’s a particular eddy then you’ll get a high reading. Says nothing about the bulk movement of air from high to low pressure.
Correct. Further what qualifies as a measured gust speed varies a lot across countries so you get large variations in the reported gust speeds for hurricanes and tropical cyclones. The distributions of short period wind speeds are highly skewed and measurement equipment is erratic, so that the highest value should never taken seriously. Even if you want something indicating maximum wind speeds it should be the 90th or 95th percentile values. But high values attract attention. The people who put out this stuff are in the PR business. Most of the core scientific measurement activity of organisations like the Met Office in developed countries has simply gone missing. It still matters in developing countries where weather is a more serious matter.
It rather depends on what your concerns are. If you want to design pylons, or have ageing trees in hedgerows, then gust strengths are probably more relevant in assessing whether they will be blown over. A wind turbine requires a full wind survey, with the frequency of winds of all strengths determining what sort of output can be expected. For buildings the steady 10 minute speed may have relevance in terms of stress on the structure from wind loading.
Why would anybody suddenly believe the Met Office?
Once the Marxists gained control of the media they set the narrative. Right or wrong they set the narrative. Conspiracy theory? Prove me wrong when there’s so much evidence that it’s true. AGW is nothing but propaganda and most of it is about weather, not climate.
A plot of the lowest wind speeds would be revealing, given that wind droughts have the capacity to destroy the power supply when coal and gas capacity contracts to the point where they can’t meet the demand.
https://newcatallaxy.blog/2023/07/11/approaching-the-tipping-point/
In the early days of the “green” transition it didn’t matter whether the sun shone or the wind blow because they just provided a bit of expensive and environmentally destructive power to the mix. But eventually there is a tipping point when blackouts occur on nights with low wind unless power can be imported from another place.
This is possible in Europe but not in Australia where independent observers, Lang and Miskelly documented serious wind droughts over a decade ago, although nobody in official circles took any notice.
https://newcatallaxy.blog/2023/06/19/its-about-the-wind-droughts-stupid/
The point is that the meteorologists of the world never mentioned low wind periods and clearly after 1993 in Britain they took a decision to make them invisible. This calls for high level investigation of the Met offices in every jurisdiction and the World Met Organization as well. That was one of the bodies recruited by Maurice Strong to start the climate alarm ball rolling going in the UN, even before the second IPCC Assessment report which was alarming, unlike the first which was quite moderate. Note that UN agencies around the world recruited 143 nations into the Kyoto Agreement before the second Assessment report.
The Seagreen wind farm has just released its first set of accounts that include some operational output from the period while it was still under construction.
It reports income of £95.2m from sales of 345.3GWh, or average revenue of £275.70/MWh. That covers a period of very high market prices, with the report end date being 31 March 2023. Even while under construction it is likely that revenue includes a substantial element of curtailment payments, but the volume of curtailment is not disclosed. It has frequently curtailed on windy days in recent months. Because it was under construction it is not possible to estimate an average capacity factor.
At this stage in its life the project is rather more a hedge fund, with very significant hedging of its interest rate exposure. It is quite brazen in stating that its CFD with the Low Carbon Contracts Company (currently worth £52.41/MWh) is not due to commence until 2026, despite having now been fully commissioned in October.
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07294645/filing-history