stephenprudence wrote:
Im not sure I agree re: the southerly thing.. maybe for people exposed to southerlies (ie south coast, etc)..
Its an each to their own thing.. a westerly will be worse for the west than a southerly will, and a southerly will be worse for the south than a westerly will be.
The reason this storm will be worse than the others is the south will get heavy rain, whilst the west will get severe winds.. so more area will be affected by severe events.
Winds are always strongest on the southwestern flanks of lows, so technically southwesterly winds are stronger than southerly winds.
Stephen, I dont think there is any doubt it will be the most intense storm, however the wind almost always come from the south west. Everything is adapted to wind from that direction, especially the countries storm defences.
If you look at the great storms , in terms of damage rather than intensity, its almost always southerlies that do most damage, even at lower wind speeds, because neither man nor nature is adapted for wind from that direction. You only have to look at a large tree near a coast to perceive its adaptation to the prevailing wind direction.
Anyway 2 just more storms to go and it should be over. Saturday looks potentially even worse to my eye.