1987 жылғы Батыс Еуропадағы қаңтардағы дауыл

1987 October storm in Western Europe

The great storm of 1987 was a violent extratropical cyclone that occurred on the night of 15–16 October, with hurricane force winds causing casualties in the United Kingdom, France, and the Channel Islands as a severe depression in the Bay of Biscay moved northeast. Among the most damaged areas were Greater London, Kent, the East Anglian coast, the Home Counties, the west of Brittany, and the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy, all of which weathered gusts typically with a return period of 1 in 200 years. Forests, parks, roads, and railways were strewn with fallen trees and schools were closed. The British National Grid suffered heavy damage, leaving thousands without power. At least 22 people were killed in England and France. The storm has been termed a weather bomb due to its rapid development. That day's weather reports had failed to indicate a storm of such severity, an earlier, correct forecast having been negated by later projections. The apparent suggestion by the BBC's Michael Fish of a false alarm is celebrated as a classic gaffe, though he claims he was misquoted. As a result of this storm, major improvements were later implemented in atmospheric observation, relevant computer models, and the training of forecasters.

On the Sunday before the storm struck, the farmers' forecast had predicted bad weather on the following Thursday or Friday, 15–16 October. By midweek, however, guidance from weather prediction models was somewhat equivocal. Instead of stormy weather over a considerable part of the UK, the models suggested that severe weather would reach no farther north than the English Channel and coastal parts of southern England.

The first gale warnings for sea areas in the English Channel were issued at 0630 UTC on 15 October and were followed, four hours later, by warnings of severe gales. Many anemometers were reliant on mains power, and ceased recording as the south east of the United Kingdom was blacked out by power cuts, thus losing much valuable data. According to the Beaufort scale of wind intensities, this storm had winds of hurricane force 12 ( or greater); as the term hurricane refers to tropical cyclones originating in the North Atlantic or North Pacific, the descriptor "great storm" has tended to be reserved for those storms in recent years reaching this velocity. Hurricanes have a very different wind profile and distribution from storms, and significantly higher precipitation levels.

The storm made landfall in Cornwall, and tracked north east towards Devon and then over the Midlands, going out to sea via The Wash. The strongest gusts, of up to , were recorded along the south eastern edge of the storm, hitting mainly Berkshire, Hampshire, Sussex, Essex, and Kent. The Royal Sovereign lighthouse 6 mile (10 km) off Eastbourne recorded the highest hourly mean wind speed in the UK on its instruments at and Surrey were also heavily affected. The storm caused substantial damage over much of England, felling an estimated 15 million trees (including six of the seven eponymous oaks in Sevenoaks, historic specimens in Kew Gardens, Wakehurst Place, Nymans Garden, Hyde Park, London and Scotney Castle and most of the trees making up Chanctonbury Ring). At Bedgebury National Pinetum, Kent almost a quarter of the trees were brought down. There have been many claims that the damage to forestry was made worse by broadleaf trees still being in leaf at the time of the storm, though this was not borne out by an analysis by the Forestry Commission. Fallen trees blocked roads and railways and left widespread structural damage primarily to windows and roofs. Several hundred thousand people were left without power, not fully restored until more than two weeks later. Local electric utility officials later said they lost more wires in the storm than in the preceding decade. At sea, as well as many small boats being wrecked, a Sealink cross channel ferry, the MV Hengist, was driven ashore at Folkestone and the bulk carrier MV Sumnea capsized at Dover, Kent. The Radio Caroline ship MV Ross Revenge weathered the storm in the north sea, being one of the few ships to be in the North Sea during the storm; it being a radio ship, it also provided radio broadcasts to thousands while most stations were offline. The National Grid sustained heavy damage during the event, as crashing cables short circuited, which in some cases overheated the main system. Its headquarters faced the choice of keeping the grid online to help London as the storm approached but risk an incremental system breakdown, failure and burnout, or to shut down most of South East England including London and avert that risk. The headquarters made the decision, the first one like it since before World War II: to shut down the South East power systems to maintain the network as soon as signs of overheating began. At Clayton, West Sussex, one of the village's recently restored windmills, Jill, sustained severe damage to its mechanisms and caught fire during the storm. The mill's brakes had been applied prior to the storm's arrival, but the high winds were able to rotate the sails and overcome the brakes, creating friction which set the mill's antique timbers on fire. Members of the Jack and Jill Windmills Society were able to put the fire out, carrying water up the hill to douse the flames. In London, many of the trees lining streets, particularly plane trees, were blown down overnight, blocking roads and crushing parked cars. Building construction scaffolding and billboards collapsed in many places, and many buildings were damaged. The following morning, the BBC's Current Affairs Production Centre at the former Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush, was unable to function due to a power failure – ITV's TV am and BBC1's Breakfast Time programmes were broadcast from different emergency facilities in emergency formats. TV am broadcast from Thames Television's Euston Road studios, while BBC newsreader Nicholas Witchell had to broadcast from the BBC1 continuity studio at BBC Television Centre, with the wall decorations used for Children's BBC hastily taken down. Much of the public transport in the capital was not functioning, and people were advised against trying to go to work. TV am host Anne Diamond did go back to the regular TV am studio with reporter Kay Burley, whilst Richard Keys remained in the Thames Television studio in case the power supply situation became even worse, and indeed, power did go back down at around 8:15 am.

The départements of Finistère, Morbihan, Côtes d'Armor, and Ille et Vilaine in Brittany, and the Cotentin Peninsula (Manche and part of Calvados) in Normandy were the areas in France most affected by the storm, which followed a line from Morbihan and Rennes to Deauville. 1.79 million homes were left without electricity supply and water, and a quarter of Brittany's forest was destroyed. The total damage was estimated at ₣23 billion. Météo France announced "une petite tempête en provenance des Açores" (a little storm coming in from the Azores), which reached Brittany's coast at about 18:00, later than expected. This depression caused little damage, with only winds. A much deeper depression hit Ushant on the extreme western tip of Brittany at midnight. It was measured at at the Brest Guipavas weather station, the lowest reading in its records dating back to 1945.

The Met Office was severely criticised by most of the national press for failing to forecast the storm correctly. BBC meteorologist Michael Fish drew particular criticism for reporting several hours before the storm hit: Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way; well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't, but having said that, actually, the weather will become very windy, but most of the strong winds, incidentally, will be down over Spain and across into France. Fish has subsequently claimed that his comments about a hurricane had nothing to do with the UK; they referred to Florida, USA, and were linked to a news story immediately preceding the weather bulletin, but had been so widely repeated out of context that the British public remains convinced that he was referring to the approaching storm. According to Fish, the woman in question was actually a colleague's mother who was about to go on holiday in the Caribbean, and had called regarding Hurricane Floyd to see if it would be safe to travel. Fish went on to warn viewers that it would be "very windy" across the south of England, but predicted that the storm would move further south along the English Channel and the British mainland would escape the worst effects. The remainder of his warning has frequently been left out when this forecast has been repeated on television, which only adds to the public's misconception of that day's forecasting. His analysis has been defended by weather experts. In particular, the lack of a weather ship in the Southwest Approaches, due to Met Office cutbacks, meant the only manner of tracking the storm was by using satellite data, as automatic buoys had not been deployed at the time. Ironically, earlier forecasts as far back as the preceding weekend had correctly identified that gale force winds would affect Southern England. However, later runs of the model had indicated a more southerly track for the low pressure system, incorrectly indicating that the strongest winds would be confined to Northern and Central France. The French meteorological office used a different computer weather model to the British, and the French model proved more accurate in predicting the severity of the storm in the Channel. The French meteorological service did correctly predict and warn for the storm and its intensity, but it might have been otherwise. Indeed, the ECMWF model forecast from 14 October 12 UTC failed to predict the strong winds and the storm position (although previous runs were closer to reality), and this could have led to inadequate warnings. This unusual inconsistency of ECMWF could have been a data assimilation issue, or came from poor data. In contrast, the French large scale model EMERAUDE made better predictions, while still underestimating the winds. It is recognised that without the experience of the forecasters, the exceptional aspects of the storm would have been missed. In the wake of the storm, the Met Office set up the National Severe Weather Warning Service. that as 15–16 October 1987 approached, shipping weather forecasts warned of storm movements in the North Atlantic, with the result that ships stayed away from North Atlantic storm tracks, depriving North Atlantic meteorology of a major necessary source of weather report data.

Following the storm, meteorologists at the University of Reading led by Professor Keith Browning developed the sting jet concept. During reanalysis of the storm they identified a mesoscale flow where the most damaging winds were shown to be emanating from the evaporating tip of the hooked cloud head on the southern flank of the cyclone. This cloud, hooked like a scorpion's tail, gives the wind region its name the "sting jet".

It is sometimes claimed that this storm was the worst since the Great Storm of 1703, but this has been challenged as ignoring storms outside the south east of England. 19 October, Black Monday, was memorable as being the first business day of the London markets after the Great Storm.