British Weather: Hurricane of 1987

[LLOYD19851012]

I was 2 when it hit brighton.

[sparkidee]

Oh and for those that think Fish doesnt do the weather anymore he still does for us here in the South East and when he is on no one takes him seriously! Kaddy and Rachel always get it spot on but Micheael never does! I dunno where he gets his information from.

[sparkidee]

I was 6 months old when this happened and I slept through the whole thing lol. We live on the south coast in Thanet near the seaside and it caused so much havoc. Michael Fish got it so so wrong! he even got todays weather wrong too, said it was gunna be bright and sunny. What is it? rain and miserable looking. Nice one! lol

[canthaguild]

0:34 Im pretty sure it was meant to dock at Folkestone, not on Folkestone :/

[DominicRiv]

Here I only thought Southern Asia & the US got storms like this.

[kiuhy8]

big storm on the way right now by all accounts...

[FCPWHAT]

I don't think it was 15th October.. It was right at the end of October '87. I was due in for work but the Underground was totally shutdown.. Id woken up at my usual time to go to work (0500), it was dark and I remember thinking, bloody hell that wind is strong out there!

[sparkygl0s]

@FCPWHAT

It was the 15th October. See watch?v=E5dbND3knpw&feature=fv­wrel , and several others.

[iwasroseontitanic]

Oh my :L

[pyphagarus]

i remember it like yesterday! i was 20.Earlier that year I passed my driving test and this was my first experience in driving in this storm that memerable night.My car got cought between 2 trees that had fallen,so I got out and released the branches.I'll never forget the 'whirling' sound the wind was making..I was trying to get from Southend on sea to Canvey Island..Not easy!!

[OWENDYKES32]

wuhheeyy! 24 years ago today! ;)

[TheWarboss7]

Wow! That was ages ago!

[georgetheguniea]

@mattbayntonlover i live in the south of england aswell! i live in portsmouth

[TheLhana]

We do like to talk about the weather, we English, don't we? A whole 4 pages on the subject. I am here for the duration now lol.

[ilovemoviesuk]

god dont we english make a meal of things. this was a tropical storm. a weak one at that . it had large gusts of wind , up to 120mph , but the sustained wind speed was only 46mph . To be classed a hurricane the sustained winds have to be at LEAST 75MPH . Any wind over 75mph is classed hurricane "force" , hence the confusion but they were only gusts NOT sustained

[TehOwchies]

@ilovemoviesuk Not entirely true. Hurricanes only form over tropical water and head towards the US. What we get in the UK are Atlantic storms. It doesn't matter what the sustained wind speeds are in the UK, anything over around 45mph is generally classed as a storm. Our storms also don't have eyes, although they can be classed as ex-hurricanes when they move from the US :)

[ilovemoviesuk]

change title. was not a hurricane. not even close LOL!!!

[ribenawrath]

the day I was born! Wow I made an entrance :D

[blueshift86]

Read this: (can't post link) but on wikipedia search: Great_Storm_of_1987

[Ashlee93CC]

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[ScarySquirrel]

I was 2 years old. I was taken by the wind and subsequently brought up by dolphins.

[chain0fflowers]

don't worry there isn't a hurricane on the way......just very strong wind!

[wordreet]

I slept through this.

. Woke at 6AM to go to work and thought, 'Coo, it's a bit blowy outside!' There was a tree down across the road, and my Beetle wouldn't start. So after pushing it round manually, the wind caught to drivers door, which I hung on to, and bump started the car by wind power!

[9x0x0x1]

Thank god I wasn't born then. ._.

[TheTraveltube]

ruined his career this mistake but we british have always said 'never trust the weather man' :-D

[Rickyrab]

For a nonhurricane, it looked an awful lot like a hurricane.

[JollyRodders]

The irony is that I remember the long range forecast on the previous Sunday saying that a big storm would hit the south on Thursday morning...Then along came Michael Fish :-)))

[JollyRodders]

This storm woke me up at 3 a.m. I drove to work in it for a 5.15 a.m start. Trees were down everywhere, bushes bounced across the road like the tumbleweed in westerns, some poor bloke on a bike just couldn't ride in a straight line. A group of people were looking at what was left of their Fiesta, which a great big tree had crushed. When I got to work the power was out. But the gas was on, so at least we had a cuppa. I believe it was the first time that ALL London buses had been cancelled - ever.

[chris99140]

who was this women, does she now work for the weather at BBC, still shit at telling the weather so i doubt it!!

[connoisseurnic]

A depression which was expected to cross northern France came closer to England than expected and the south coast and the fringes of essex were worst hit.

Even today the Met. office in the U.K cannot forecast accurately more than 3 days ahead. The music on the footage is David Bowie - Wild is the Wind from his 1976 album "Station to Station".

[Misterb0z]

Ah, I remember it well. Chamberlain came on the wireless and told us it was coming. We dug a shelter in the garden, and it wasn't long till uncle Charlie was called up. Of course, I was too small to think much of it, but I jolly well played my part. We dug up the remains of the garden (I can't remember how it got buried) and then we planted potatoes.

Can't say I remember that Fish fellow, but then again, like I say, I was only a wee lad.

[YesIamEccentric]

THAT WOMAN IS ALL - KNOWING! SHE MUST RUN THE MET-OFFICE NOW!

[YesIamEccentric]

@YesIamEccentric Not she runs it Now, but she has to or else we will forever have to guess the rain!

[Regalseven]

Hurricane? What hurricane!

[KB7KB7KB7]

I hope we have another one...we are due one

[KingFreakAce]

@KB7KB7KB7 lol i hope so

[JennySussex]

I have been thinking alot about this as it is extremely windy here right now where I am! Just hope they got better at predicting 22yrs on! I remember it clearly......UK's first ever hurricane Oct 87, then we had a 2nd one in Jan 88.......:-(

[quakize]

it was gatagory 3 winds its a hurricane in the united stats 4 years later bob hit roade island new york ext ext

[bismuthcadmium]

That first footage of the roof coming off those terraced houses is actually from the 25th January 1990 storm.

[BlackwidowHG]

And he never presented the weather again

[STOPTHEEU]

@BlackwidowHG Although it wasnt realy his fault..

[BlackwidowHG]

Oh wow really? I didn't realise that people can't control the weather, thanks for enlightening me!!!!!

People need to lighten the hell up on here!!!!!

[bloggulator]

The corporate media, looking (as always) for someone to blame, set their sights on Fish. They cherry-picked one sentence out of his forecast and presented it, out of context, to the hapless gullible public. It's a parallel to what happened in the run up to the Iraq war, when garbage material was broadcast by the US/UK govts to the people, making it appear that Iraq was a "clear and present danger"... which as we now all know, was a big fat lie. We are *all* now paying dearly for it.

[okuma0kuma]

there was no lie chemical weapons were used during sadam's rule the danger is world oil reserves when it run out every thing is going to be slowed down to solar energy or nuclear energy depending on country so military needs its fuel for defense purposes this is the truth

[bloggulator]

This was not a hurricane.... hurricanes are warm core systems of tropical origin; this was a temperate frontal depression, albeit a very intense one for S. England. The hurricane which Fish was referring was Hurricane Floyd, 3000 miles away in the Caribbean. The forecast was fair: but they got the path of the strongest winds too far south. Vital forecast data was compromised by government spending cuts, axeing a weather ship in Biscay. If you wanna point a finger, there's the problem.

[abbafan50986]

So Michael Fish wasn't entirely wrong then...

[MilockGAMES24]

@abbafan50986 yes, but in the eyes of the audience it was misleading.

[EdM021]

This gale had all the characteristics -- even an eye -- of a US category 2 hurricane except two, then. So he was right to say, Don't worry, there isnt.

[a1dzcannon]

yanks get them all the time, fail on them. But here in the UK were not use to them because we rarely get them so it's different.

[djehuty13]

@bloggulator But "Hurricane" is the highest point on the Beuford scale. It doesn't have to be a hurricane to be a hurricane. Good point though :)

[blueshift86]

@bloggulator I blame the Tories! I hate the buggers!

[KevCityboy]

This is quite good.