Saturday 26 October 2013

Hurricane St Jude Coming Sunday Night

Seems a bit unfair that it is America and China who are doing the most to rubbish the atmosphere but it is the UK that is getting the consequences in the shape of a Hurricane about the flatten the southern half of the country.
Que sera sera as the French say so it's time to batten down the hatches and make sure everything that can be picked up in 80+ mph winds and deposited through your living room window is tied down because the small hope that it will miss us has been dismissed by the MET Office, its coming and it's gonna be big.
There were hopes the huge storm brewing over the Atlantic Ocean would miss the UK, and sweep instead through the English Channel but meteorologists are now certain it will strike the south west of England and could leave a trail of destruction with winds speeds in excess of 80mph gusting north-east across the country, causing structural damage, widespread flooding and bringing down trees and power lines. 
Advice from the MET Office is to keep checking the forecasts as the Hurricane, named St Jude, approaches and only travel only if your journey is necessary but if you are on the roads, take a fully-charged mobile phone and warm, weatherproof clothing as roads may become blocked.
They also advise staying away from windows, skylights and glass doors and have a supply of torches and extra batteries handy in case power lines are downed and if power is lost, turn off major appliances to reduce a power surge when electricity is restored. 
Stay safe everyone and with a bit of luck a tree will fall across the entrance of work and we get an extra day off work.

1 comment:

MET Office said...

Hi Lucy. Good advice on here but you are not alone in referring to the event as hurricane. This is not strictly correct as we can’t get hurricanes in the UK.

A hurricane is the name given to a storm that develops in certain parts of the Atlantic Ocean, our storm is developing in a part of the Atlantic that makes it a mid-latitude storm and it forms in a different way to a hurricane.

Where the confusion comes is that the Beaufort scale defines winds above 74mph as ‘hurricane force 12’ and we are predicting winds around 80-90mph but that is not the same as being a hurricane.

Please stay safe and keep looking at the MET website and TV forecasts for further information.