Wunderground.com - by Dr. Jeff Masters - 18 October 2013
Figure 1. Waves crash against the sea barriers in Porthcawl, South Wales, on October 27, 2013, ahead of the arrival of the St. Jude's Day storm. Image credit: GEOFF CADDICK/AFP/Getty Images.
A mighty Atlantic gale, called the 2013 St. Jude's Day storm by the UK Met Office, and "Christian" by the Free University of Berlin, is battering Western Europe with hurricane-strength wind gusts, waves up to 25 feet high, and driving rains. As of 2 am local time, the peak wind gust from the storm in the UK according to a tweet from the UK Met Office (@metoffice) was 92 mph, at the Isle of Wight in the English Channel. Powerful winds have also swept the north coast of France; winds in Brest, France hit 41 mph, gusting to 67 mph at 2 am local time Monday, and gusted as high as 65 mph at Caen. With the trees still in leaf, winds this strong have the potential to cause heavy tree damage and large scale power outages. The storm is moving quickly, and sustained winds fo 35 - 45 mph will arrive along the coast of the Netherlands by 6 am local time Monday, by noon in Denmark, near 6 pm in Southern Sweden, and near midnight Monday night in Estonia and Southern Finland. You can check out the current winds in Southern Britain and Northern France using our wundermap zoomed into the region with the weather station layer turned on.
