By Paul Homewood
Well I did warn you!
The Needles are a spectacular limestone formation located at the end of peninsula sticking out into the sea. The weather station is at the Old Battery, 80m above sea level at the top of the cliff overlooking the rocks below:
https://www.mybestplace.com/en/article/the-needles-chalk-needles-on-the-isle-of-wight
Wind speeds there have no relevance at all to what is happening in the rest of the country. Moreover the Met Office have only been measuring wind speeds there for a few years, which is why the Needles never used to appear in their weather reports. (I have asked the Met Office for the date it started. They do show wind speeds there for 1998, but it certainly was not mentioned in the Burns Day storm).
Just a few mile along the coast at St Catherine’s Point, itself an exposed location but close to sea level, gusts peaked at 84 mph:
And just around the north coast, where it is a bit more sheltered, winds peaked at just 50.6 mph at Newport:
http://www.isleofwightweather.com/wx4.html
The clue that the Needles wind speeds are meaningless and misleading lie in the comparison with the next windiest sites, which include places like Mumbles Head and Pembrey Sands that are themselves highly exposed and regularly appear close to the top of wind speed lists:
A much more meaningful assessment is given by the list of inland locations:
Now compare again with the Burns Day storm, which is shown in knots:
Chivenor’s 83 mph equals 72 Kts, a figure which was significantly exceeded across most of southern England and the Midlands in 1990. The next highest, Charlwood is 78 mph. or 68 Kts.
But I suspect we will hear little of this from the media or Met Office. Instead the headlines will blare out “122 mph winds” and “record winds”.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
February 18, 2022 at 08:15AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 