British Storms

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The 2013-14 winter storms have cost the U.K. £500 million already and is expected to rise to at least £1 billion to finish the cleanup operation. The storm has also damaged the economy, with some spectators estimating a drop of £13.8 billion on the stocks. Clearly then, storms in the UK have a significant impact on many areas of life and effective responses can be both costly and time consuming. Britains location in the North Atlantic means that it is subject to 5 different air masses, only two consisting of tropical conditions to create large storms and so they are relatively infrequent but can still happen. When a storm occurs any form any impact, most likely damage, there must be some form of reaction, usually by trying to restore what was damaged by the storm or improving, called a response. Responses can have very degrees of effectiveness and this essay will discuss the relative impacts of 3 storm events, the Great Storm of 1987, the August 2004 Boscastle storm and the October 2013 St Judes Day storm and evaluate the responses to each.

The Great Storm of 1987 formed over in the Bay of Biscay on the Tropical Maritime air mass and so had the perfect conditions for a large storm (warm and wet air) with a very low pressure of 953 Mb. It was forecast to travel down the English channel and the last weather report on the 15th October told the British public so. However, at around 11pm, the course of the storm suddenly changed and it began to head for mainland Britain. A Met Office alert was issued, but at 1:30am, not many people were awake to take notice. The storm struck the south coast with a Hurricane force of 11, battering the houses and trees causing large amounts of damage both environmentally and economically. At Shoreham, the wind speed was measured at 115 mph. The storm soon wound its way to London and even in the city, relatively inland, the wind speed was recorded at 92 mph. The damage to large sections of the national grid led to the entire closure of the grid connecting London leading to a citywide blackout.

The storm had significant impacts environmentally, socially and economically. Firstly, an estimated 15 million trees were uprooted and many rare species of tree in London’s Kew Gardens were killed which would take 20 years to replace. The impact on trees imparticular was so widespread due to the time of year when the storm hit. In October most trees had not lost their leaves and so with the severe winds, the leaves acted like a sail rather than blowing through as it would on a bare tree and so many trees fell and blocked important lifelines