Norman wrote:

Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:06:12 +0000, Steve Loft wrote:

Some people near us had a poly tunnel destroyed on the night of the
19th/20th December 2008, and are dismissing my Vantage Pro 2
recorded peak gust of 'only' 89 mph, saying that they had been told
that it was actually 125 mph.

Presumably they want a high figure to back up an insurance claim or
are the insurance already refusing to pay as the wind "wasn't strong
enough".

I've been asked to supply data by people nearby to back up their
claims when insurance companies have been baulking at paying out. The
insurance Co. will say the weather was X but when pressed for the
source of their information they'll say Carlisle Airport which is 20
miles away and 1000'+ lower... AFAIK the insurance companies have
accepted the data from my station and coughed up.

My anemometer is reasonably well exposed, at a height of about 5m
AGL. Does this claimed figure sound remotely likely - this is at
sea level, near enough.

Up here I find the 5s gust speeds are roughly 20mph above 1 min mean,
with the very occasional gust up to 30mph higher. Note that is a 1
min mean not the 10 min mean that the MetO use.

So a 125mph gust implies a mean of about 100mph, I don't find that
very likely but your 89mph gust and implied 70mph mean is much more
believeable.

I seem to remember someone here quoting a figure of around that on
Cairngorm. Are there any official figures available from anywhere?

Weatheronline does have a history for the sites it reports but access
is via Premium Membership, £19.90/year. Curiously the temp histroy
for GDF which is reported "live" and isn't (in theory) a premium page
comes back with "No Data", so I'm not convinced how complete their
records are.


Cairngorm reported gusts over 100 knots in each of the hourly obs
1600-2200 on 19th Dec 2008 and again at 0000 on the 20th. The highest
gust was 120 knots in the hour ending 1700 on the 19th

A quick question - are the figures quoted above 'nautical' mph ( knots)
or statute mph? Might such confusion explain any discrepancies?