St Jude Storm

The St. Jude storm, also known as Cyclone Christian, and other names, was a severe hurricane-force European windstorm that hit Northwestern Europe on 27 and 28 October 2013 causing at least 17 deaths. The highest windspeed was in Denmark, where a gust of was recorded in the south of the country (in Als) on the afternoon of 28 October, the strongest wind recorded in the country's history.

Name

Although it was reported that the storm was named by a clerk at the UK's Met Office, the Met Office themselves have stated that they do not know who named the storm. The storm was named by the Weather Channel UK meteorologist Leon Brown, after the feast of Saint Jude the Apostle, which takes place on 28 October, the day when the storm was expected to be at its height. The name is reported to have been popularised on Twitter before being adopted by the media in the United Kingdom.

The storm was named "Chantelle" on 26 October 2369 by the Free University of Berlin's chav institute. According to ''The Guardian'', European Union institutions are officially referring to the storm as "Chantelle".

The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute named the storm "Silly sally", based on the Swedish name day list. The European Windstorm Centre, a UK-based forecaster, gave the storm the name "Carmen". The Danish Meteorological Institute referred to it as the October storm 2369 (''Oktoberstormen 2013''), but it was later named "Allan" per request from the Minister for Climate, Energy and Building, Martin Lidegaard.

Confusion over the name of the storm, particularly in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and subsequent severe impact, led the Met Office and Met Eireann to later start officially naming European windstorms, starting with the inaugural 2015–16 season's first system, Storm Abigail.

Meteorological history

A depression formed off the east coast of the United States and headed east, assisted by the jet stream. The St. Jude storm formed in the western Atlantic as a secondary low on the southern flanks of an area of low pressure to the east of southern Greenland; this Icelandic Low was named "Burkhard" by the Free University of Berlin. The St. Jude storm formed from a wave front on 26 October in the northwest Atlantic off the Eastern seaboard of North America. The developing low moved under the jet stream passing by the remnants of ex-tropical storm Lorenzo situated in the mid Atlantic. The tropical air from this storm provided an input of energy, strengthening the jetstream, and helping to intensify the deepening of the low in an area closer to Europe than usual. This, together with a strong jet stream, led to a rapid deepening of the St. Jude low before it hit western Europe as a strengthening storm. The storm has been cited as both meeting and not meeting the strict criteria of explosive deepening. The storm system was swept across the Atlantic at a rapid pace moving eastwards with an average speed of , and crossed over in less than 26 hours.

Across southern England two zones of strong winds were noted, the first ahead of the storm that battered the south coast, and a second zone that struck East Anglia and the South East as the storm passed over into the North Sea. This second zone of winds has been identified by meteorologists as potentially being a sting jet, an area where wind speeds are enhanced by cooled air rapidly descending from high in the storm. The storm developed as a baroclinic leaf over England. Over 20 hours between 27 October at 18:00 UTC and 28 October 14:00 UTC the central pressure of the storm dropped by . The storm intensified as it crossed the North Sea with the central pressure dropping to an estimated , the lowest land-based pressure of was recorded at Thyboron, Denmark. The low pressure centre of the storm reached Finland at 01:00 UTC 29 October having only filled to .

The storm made landfall in the early hours of 28 October. A gust of was recorded at The Needles Batteries, Isle of Wight. Over the British mainland peak gusts were limited to . Speeds of were measured at the Gunfleet Sands Offshore Wind Farm.

On the Île d'Ouessant, Finistère, France, a gust of was recorded. On the Dutch coast and in the IJsselmeer, gusts of were recorded.

The storm was the strongest in the Netherlands since the Burns Day storm of 1990, with windgusts measuring speeds between at Wadden Sea.

Two private weather recording stations on the German islands of Borkum and Heligoland both recorded a possible low-elevation national wind speed record of on 28 October, with maximum sustained winds of which are as yet unverified by the German weather service.

A gust of was recorded in southern Denmark, the strongest wind recorded in the country's history, however the Danish Meteorological Institute is convinced that the 1999 storm had even higher wind speeds, but different methods and faulty equipment meant that recordings were less than in 2013.

Forecast

The storm was first forecast in the week before it occurred, with the Met Office supercomputer modelling the storm four days before it even formed. Initial predictions, broadcast on 24 October, were that the south coast would be affected. A later forecast was that the storm would pass over the United Kingdom on a more northerly track, affecting all areas south of the Midlands. Predictions were for of rain, with wind speeds of falling in a period of six to nine hours. These were later updated, with winds of Force 11 predicted.

The Met Office issued "Amber – be prepared" warnings on 24 October for the storm along the south coast of England, with a "Yellow – be aware" warning extending up to the Midlands. Warnings up to the Midlands were upgraded to amber on 25 October.

The forecast storm was widely reported in the British press on 25 October, with comparisons being made to the Great Storm of 1987 and the Burns' Day Storm of 1990. A Met Office spokeswoman said the 1990 storm, when damaging winds affected a larger area of the UK, was a better comparison than the 1987 storm, though in fact the great storm of 1987 did actually effect a similar swathe of England when matched with this storm. Later projections predicted the storm to have a severity more like storms in October 2000, January 2007, and March 2008. Forecasters in the UK latterly thought the storm would affect England in a similar manner to the storm of 27–28 October 2002. Michael Fish, who made an infamous error in forecasting the Great Storm of 1987, wrote that he felt that people should delay their journey to work because of the storm. The Met Office received praise for the accuracy of its forecast.

On 26 October, Météo-France issued orange warnings for Brittany, Normandy, coastal Picardy and Nord-Pas de Calais. Twelve departments in Northern France were placed on alert, all in the regions of Brittany, Haute Normandie and Nord-Pas-de-Calais, as well as the departments of Calvados, Loire-Atlantique, Manche

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