West Cornwall - Severe gale materialised.

[Graham Easterling]

Extremely noisy from 03:00 to 06:00. Gusts include:-

 92mph at Gwennap Head

83mph at John Chappell's site near Land's End

Worst right on the north Cornish coast, 98mph at NCI Stepper Point near Padstow!

There are many houses without power across the tip of Cornwall. Almost all of Pendeen is without power, the Heamoor area of Penzance, where a friend lives at St Buryan, Lands End Airport area. Most schools are shut, in any case there's a large tree blocking the entrance of the main 2ndary school in Penzance, There are branches in my garden, and a water butt has detached itself from the down pipe and is now at the bottom of the garden, and a trampoline in the road.

Yes, it was best (worst?) gale for >year, well worthy of the name. Luckily the swell wasn't exceptional (things developed too recently to develop a really large swell, it was just VERY rough) and the tides are smaller now. 

With gusts to 80mph at Lands End airport it was probably the right decision to move the planes to Culdrose to keep warm & dry for the night.

All the boats removed from the top of the slip at Sennen (where they are normally placed during a gale) and removed to the car park, at great effort. Proved worthwhile.

Graham

Penzance

[Len]

Forecast was good predicting west Cornwall would get it worse.

Peak gust here only 54 mph at Plymouth Mount Batten.

Plenty to talk about with my U3A Weather group this afternoon providing we don't get a power cut..

Unlikely as wind is calming down now.

Len

Wembury

[Graham Easterling]

Yes, I thought the models were really impressive in getting the track & development spot on a few days out.

Glad I wasn't in the Channel Islands.

Graham

[Graham Easterling]

Huge number of trees down in & around Penzance. There's certainly been worse gales, but I've never seen so many trees down. Perhaps because the ground is sodden, they still have leaves on, and it's been a long time since there was a severe gale. Penlee Park, including 2 cafes, tennis club etc. is all shut as there are so many trees down, it's a scene of devastation. The main A30 was closed just east of Penzance due to fallen trees at Crowlas. The A30 west to Sennen & Lands End is closed. The Penzance by-pass was closed due to trees down.

Penzance by-pass

Our trip to Morrison's, the far side of Penzance was a bit of a non starter, so we just went about 600 yards to the nearest Coop, and saw this

Unusual for the wind to be more damaging than the sea in a gale here.

Certainly worth the amber warning, bordering on red.

Graham

Penzance

[Graham Easterling]

I didn't think there was a tree big enough in Sennen to block the road, but there was, just one, and it blew down.

Lucky someone thought to provide a toilet for those stuck waiting to get through

Hope nobody was doing a dump.

Graham

[Graham Easterling]

Lastly (I'll shut up now,) look here for some great pictures of Porthleven, which as usual was massive in these conditions.

I noticed on BBC Spotlight only showed the 'official' station wind gusts, of which there are virtually none anymore, so showed the highest at inland Camborne (77mph I think) In practice most of the coast reached 80mph, much of the north coast >90mph. They used to at least include Gwennap Head (which reached 92mph). The strongest gust I've seen reliably recorded (98mph) similar to that in the Channel Islands

Anyway what an 80-90mph gust westerly storm looks like at Porthleven (scroll down past the inevitable Penzance prom pics)

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/gallery/storm-ciaran-unleashes-fury-cornwall-8878588

In the old days they'd at last send a reporter to Porthleven or Newquay (which was equally impressive), not any more, Hastings is quite far enough.

Still plenty of homes without power, and needless to say not a single train running in Cornwall