The Great Storm of 1987 was a violent extratropical cyclone that occurred on the night of 15–16 October, with hurricane-force winds causing casualties in England, France, and the Channel Islands as a severe depression in the Bay of Biscay moved north east. Among the most damaged areas were Greater London, Kent, the East Anglian coast, the Home Counties, the west of Brittany, and the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy, all of which weathered gusts with a return period of 1 in 200 years.
Forests, parks, roads, and railways were strewn with fallen trees and schools were closed. The British National Grid suffered heavy damage, leaving thousands without power. At least 22 people were killed in England and France. The highest measured gust of 135 miles per hour; 217 kilometres per hour (117 kn) was recorded at Pointe Du Roc, Granville, France and the highest gust recorded in the UK was 115mph at Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex. The storm has been termed a weather bomb due to its rapid development.
That day's weather reports had failed to indicate a storm of such severity, with an earlier, somewhat more accurate forecast having been negated by later projections. The apparent suggestion by the BBC's Michael Fish of a false alarm has been celebrated as a classic gaffe, although he claims he was misquoted. As a result of this storm, major improvements were later implemented in atmospheric observation, relevant computer models, and the training of forecasters.
Development
On the Sunday before the storm struck, the farmers' forecast had predicted bad weather on the following Thursday or Friday, 15–16 October. By midweek, however, guidance from weather prediction models was somewhat equivocal. Instead of stormy weather over a considerable part of the UK, the models suggested that severe weather would reach no farther north than the English Channel and coastal parts of southern England.
During the afternoon of 15 October, winds were very light over most parts of the UK. The pressure gradient was slack. A depression was drifting slowly northwards over the North Sea off eastern Scotland. A trough lay over England, Wales, and Ireland. Over the Bay of Biscay, a depression was developing.
First warnings
The first gale warnings for sea areas in the English Channel were issued at 0630 UTC on 15 October and were followed, four hours later, by warnings of severe gales. At 1200 UTC on 15 October, the depression, which originated in the Bay of Biscay, was centred near 46° N, 9° W and its depth was 970 hPa (29 inHg). By 1800 UTC, it had moved north-east to about 47° N, 6° W, and deepened to 964 hPa (28.5 inHg).
At 2235 UTC, winds of Force 10 were forecast. By midnight, the depression was over the western English Channel, and its central pressure was 953 hPa (28.1 inHg). At 0140 on 16 October, warnings of Force 11 were issued. The depression now moved rapidly north-east, filling a little as it did, reaching the Humber Estuary at about 0530 UTC, by which time its central pressure was 959 hectopascals (28.3 inHg). Dramatic increases in temperature were associated with the passage of the storm's warm front.
In some sea areas, warnings of severe weather were both timely and adequate, although forecasts for land areas left much to be desired.
During the evening of 15 October, radio and TV forecasts mentioned strong winds, but indicated that heavy rain would be the main feature, rather than wind. By the time most people went to bed, exceptionally strong winds had not been mentioned in national radio and TV weather broadcasts.
Warnings of severe weather had been issued, however, to various agencies and emergency authorities, including the London Fire Brigade. Perhaps the most important warning was issued by the Met Office to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) at 0135 UTC, 16 October. It warned that the anticipated consequences of the storm were such that civil authorities might need to call on assistance from the military.
Winds
A highest gust of 220 km/h; 137 mph (119 kn) is estimated from satellite data at Quimper, Brittany, with the highest measured gust at 217 km/h; 135 mph (117 kn) at Pointe du Roc, Granville, Normandy.
In south east England, where the greatest damage occurred, gusts of 130 km/h; 81 mph (70 kn) or more were recorded continually for three or four consecutive hours.
During this time, the wind veered from southerly to south-westerly. To the north west of this region, there were two maxima in gust speeds, separated by a period of lower wind speeds. During the first period, the wind direction was southerly. During the latter, it was south-westerly. Damage patterns in south east England suggested that tornadoes accompanied the storm.
In the UK, winds at Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex reached 190 km/h; 120 mph (100 kn) before the anemometer failed. Many anemometers were reliant on mains power, and ceased recording as the south east of the United Kingdom was blacked-out by power cuts, thus losing much valuable data.
Winds with an estimated 200-year return period hit the counties of Kent, Sussex, Berkshire, Hampshire, and along the coastal strip of Essex, Suffolk, and south east Norfolk. North of a line from Portland Bill, Dorset to Cromer, Norfolk the return period of the respective gusts were under 10 years.
Sustained winds speeds greater than 121 km/h (75 mph) were recorded for over an hour in southern Britain. According to the Beaufort scale of wind intensities, this storm had winds of hurricane force 12 (117 km/h [73 mph] or greater); as the term hurricane refers to tropical cyclones originating in the North Atlantic or North Pacific, the descriptor "great storm" has tended to be reserved for those storms in recent years reaching this velocity. Hurricanes have a very different wind profile and distribution from storms, and significantly higher precipitation levels.
Impact
England
The storm made landfall in Cornwall, and tracked north-east towards Devon and then over the Midlands, going out to sea via The Wash. The strongest gusts, of up to 100 knots (190 km/h; 120 mph), were recorded along the south eastern edge of the storm, hitting mainly Berkshire, Hampshire, Sussex, Essex, and Kent. The Royal Sovereign lighthouse 6 miles (9.7 km) off Eastbourne recorded the highest hourly-mean wind speed in the UK on its instruments at 75 kn (139 km/h; 86 mph). The counties of Dorset and Surrey were also heavily affected.
The storm caused substantial damage over much of England, felling an estimated 15 million trees, including six of the seven eponymous oaks in Sevenoaks, historic specimens in Kew Gardens, Wakehurst Place, Nymans Garden, Hyde Park in London, and Scotney Castle and most of the trees making up Chanctonbury Ring. At Bedgebury National Pinetum, Kent almost a quarter of the trees were brought down. There have been many claims that the damage to forestry was made worse by broadleaf trees still being in leaf at the time of the storm, though this was not borne out by an analysis by the Forestry Commission.
Fallen trees blocked roads and railways, and left widespread structural damage primarily to windows and roofs. More than 5,000 trees fell on railway tracks in the Southern Region, and the Midland and West Coast Main Lines were blocked. Beach huts were blown onto tracks at Leigh-on-Sea. The roofs and canopies at Limehouse and Benfleet stations were destroyed, and £300,000 of damage was caused to construction work on a new train ferry pier at Dover Western Docks station.
Several hundred thousand people were left without power, not fully restored until more than two weeks later. Local electric utility officials later said they lost more wires in the storm than in the preceding decade. At sea, as well as many small boats being wrecked, a Sealink cross-channel ferry, the MV Hengist, was driven ashore at Folkestone and the bulk carrier MV Sumnea capsized at Dover, Kent. The Radio Caroline ship MV Ross Revenge survived as one of the few ships to be in the North Sea during the storm; it being a radio ship, it also provided radio broadcasts to thousands while most stations were offline.
The National Grid sustained heavy damage during the event, as crashing cables short-circuited, which in some cases overheated the main system. Its headquarters faced the choice of keeping the grid online to help London as the storm approached but risk an incremental system breakdown, failure and burnout, or to shut down most of south east England including London and avert that risk. The headquarters made the decision, the first one like it since before World War II: to shut down the south east power systems to maintain the network as soon as signs of overheating began.
At Clayton, West Sussex, one of the village's recently restored windmills, Jill, sustained severe damage to its mechanisms and caught fire during the storm. The mill's brakes had been applied prior to the storm's arrival, but the high winds were able to rotate the sails and overcome the brakes, creating friction which set the mill's antique timbers on fire. Members of the Jack and Jill Windmills Society were able to put the fire out, carrying water up the hill to douse the flames.
In London, many of the trees lining streets, particularly plane trees, were blown down overnight, blocking roads and crushing parked cars. Building construction scaffolding and billboards collapsed in many places, and many buildings were damaged. The following morning, the BBC's current affairs production centre at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush, was unable to function due to a power failure – TV-am's Good Morning Britain and BBC1's Breakfast Time programmes were broadcast from different emergency facilities in emergency formats. TV-am broadcast from Thames Television's Euston Road studios, while BBC newsreader Nicholas Witchell had to use the BBC1 continuity studio at BBC Television Centre, with the wall decorations used for Children's BBC hastily taken down. Much of the public transport in the capital was not functioning, and people were advised against trying to go to work. Good Morning Britain host Anne Diamond did go back to the regular TV-am studio with reporter Kay Burley, whilst Richard Keys remained in the Thames Television studio in case the power supply situation became even worse, and indeed, power did go back down at around 8:15 am.
Eighteen people lost their lives as a result of the storm.
France
The départements of Finistère, Morbihan, Côtes-d'Armor, and Ille-et-Vilaine in Brittany, and the Cotentin Peninsula (Manche and part of Calvados) in Normandy were the areas in France most affected by the storm, which followed a line from Morbihan and Rennes to Deauville. 1.79 million homes were left without electricity supply and water, and a quarter of Brittany's forest was destroyed. The total damage was estimated at ₣23 billion.
Météo France announced "une petite tempête en provenance des Açores" (a little storm coming in from the Azores), which reached Brittany's coast at about 18:00, later than expected. This depression caused little damage, with only 50 to 60 km/h (31 to 37 mph; 27 to 32 kn) winds. A much deeper depression hit Ushant on the extreme western tip of Brittany at midnight. It was measured at 948 mbar (28.0 inHg) at the Brest-Guipavas weather station, the lowest reading in its records dating back to 1945.
Weather stations on the coast at pointe du Raz, pointe Saint-Mathieu and Penmarch gave no readings, as they were damaged by the high winds. The wind speed measured at Brest was 148 km/h (92 mph; 80 kn). The centre of the storm crossed Brittany from Penmarch to Saint-Brieuc at 110 km/h (68 mph; 59 kn), with gusts of wind up to 187 km/h (116 mph; 101 kn) at Quimper, 200 km/h (120 mph; 110 kn) at Ushant, and 220 km/h (140 mph; 120 kn) at la pointe de Penmarch and Granville. Waves were measured at 16 m (52 ft) off Ushant and Belle Île.
Similar strength storms in France since 1960:
- Tempête Vivian in 1990 (generally milder)
- Cyclones Lothar and Martin in December 1999, which claimed 140 lives, equally severe in Germany; more southern neighbouring countries also saw multiple deaths.
- Cyclone Klaus which struck worse southern France and northern Spain in 2009 and claimed 26 lives.
The Saint-Cœur de Marie church at Concarneau was damaged but never rebuilt, and was finally demolished a few years later.
The Herald of Free Enterprise was caught in the storm off Cape Finisterre as it was making its way for scrapping in Taiwan. The ship was cast adrift after its tow rope parted, finally resuming its journey on 19 October 1987.
Aftermath
The storm cost the insurance industry £2 billion, making it the second most expensive UK weather event on record to insurers after the Burns' Day Storm of 1990. Peak wind velocities were in the early hours of the morning, which may have helped reduce the death toll.
The storm hit the Isle of Wight at 02:00. Shanklin Pier, a central landmark in the seaside resort of Shanklin on the southeast coast of the island, was broken into three pieces as a result of mountainous waves in Sandown Bay that struck the structure. Plans to rebuild the pier were soon abandoned as the company supervising the pier's refurbishment prior to the storm went bankrupt, and the rest of the pier was demolished by contractors shortly afterwards. A monument now stands in front of what used to be the pier entrance.