From the MetO Daily Weather report of the day before a major Eng
Channel storm in the 1920s the chief forecaster reported
"A depression covering a large area is stationary off the southwest of
Ireland but secondaries are likely to form and maintain southerly winds "
Then after the event , with anomolously strong winds , would the
interpretation,if required, have just been very deep secondary/ies in
the channel ? , with paucity of ship radio reports and the extremely
strong S/SSW winds on shore and the likes of Portland Bill reporting
very sharp drop and rise in pressure. ?
NOAA reanalasis shows no secondaries but very high 850HPa activity over
Northern France, not quite as strong as the Great Storm 1987 but the 20s
version was over spring tides rather than neaps and coincided with the
high-tide pulse along the English channel. Also the (adiabatic) warming
was noted the next day, the same as with 1987 but there was an
explanation for that in 1987 .
The 1920s surge situation a bit more complicated than that because of
the effect of the extremely strong southerly winds preceeding the
westerlies, but the 1987 Eng Channel surge went unnoticed because of its
timing relative to the local tides.