Storm Ciara -Sunday 9th Feb.

[whole diary]

[TonyK]

Fly away trampolines cause rail delays. From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-51436805

Some helpful advice from RoSPA there. Elsewhere, ScotRail posted a picture after one of their "new" HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) hit a tree, fortunately rather slowly.

[rogerpatenall]

I am sure that a lot of the trees down were not from Network Rail property, but most probably were. It is a Network Rail management decision not to manage the line side - and react only to emergency work and situations, so I put much of that problem down to NR^» (Network Rail - home page) Management - not Act of God.

We took the decision to continue with our plans to attend a 5th birthday lunch in Manchester. Booked on the 1020 from Euston we went there at 730, caught the first train out and had a five hours fifteen minutes journey to Piccadilly. 50 mph certainly induces rest and sleep. Coming back at 6pm was expected to be another 5 hours - but the speed limit was lifted after Stoke, and the return journey (on a rammed full Pendolino) was 3 hours.

Could easily have been a foolish plan for a day out, but actually worked well - my first experience of an Avanti West Coast service. Not fair to draw conclusions about them on that one exceptional day, but they and their staff did well.

[IndustryInsider]

Could easily have been a foolish plan for a day out, but actually worked well - my first experience of an Avanti West Coast service. Not fair to draw conclusions about them on that one exceptional day, but they and their staff did well.

I think the new staff they've got in are far better than the old Virgin lot.   

[TonyK]

I think the new staff they've got in are far better than the old Virgin lot.   

Old Virgins get a bad press.

[charles_uk]

And there's more to look forward to this coming weekend:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2020/storm-dennis-will-bring-heavy-rain-and-gales-to-the-uk-on-saturday

Storm Dennis to bring heavy rain and gales to the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)

Author: Press Office
10:35 (UTC) on Tue 11 Feb 2020

...not expected to be as extreme as Storm Ciara but will bring widespread strong winds and heavy rain to parts of the UK...

[grahame]

And there's more to look forward to this coming weekend:

Storm Dennis to bring heavy rain and gales to the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)

Was I the only one to be expecting the next weather event to be Storm(y) Daniel(s)?

[froome]

And there's more to look forward to this coming weekend:

Storm Dennis to bring heavy rain and gales to the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)

Was I the only one to be expecting the next weather event to be Storm(y) Daniel(s)?

How long will we have to wait before Storm Zee is strutting the stage, raining down on us all?

[Robin Summerhill]

50 mph certainly induces rest and sleep.

It certainly used to on the York to Swindon mail and parcels down the GC^» (Great Central Railway - link to heritage line) in the 1960s.

And 50 would have seemed a reckless hair-raising speed on the Somerset & Dorset

[Phil]

How long will we have to wait before Storm Zee is strutting the stage, raining down on us all?

Storm Zed post-Brexit, surely?

[eightf48544]

50 mph certainly induces rest and sleep.

It certainly used to on the York to Swindon mail and parcels down the GC^» (Great Central Railway - link to heritage line) in the 1960s.

And 50 would have seemed a reckless hair-raising speed on the Somerset & Dorset

I used to catch the Manchester (Central) to Marylebone Via Woodhead and GC overnight parcels train in the early 60 usually got a good nights sleep.

Peter Smith SD driver reckons he did 85 passing Baileygate on rebuilt WC^▸ (Wiltshire Council (Unitary Authority))/BB.

[BBM]

How long will we have to wait before Storm Zee is strutting the stage, raining down on us all?

Some off-topic trivia - in 2005 the North Atlantic hurricane season had so many storms that they ran out of names with Hurricane Wilma and they then had to start using Greek letters beginning with Tropical Storm Alpha and ending on the sixth letter of the alphabet with Tropical Storm Zeta:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Atlantic_hurricane_season

[REVUpminster]

This may not be the place to put this but with storm Clara passing and Storm Dennis on it's way and no one has mentioned this.
 A huge chunk of cliff fell into the sea revealing caves undermining property above. Luckily  not near the railway at the moment. which is at the left arrow and the fall at the right arrow.

Last year a number of rocks were placed at the bottom of the cliff with the railway line immediately above. The two storms above come from the West whereas it is storms from the East that damage Torbay (Hollicombe) and Dawlish.

Livermead from air by Robert, on Flickr
Livermead by Robert, on Flickr

[Surrey 455]

How long will we have to wait before Storm Zee is strutting the stage, raining down on us all?

Sorry, won't be possible. Some letters just aren't used 

From The Met Office

Why are there no storms for Q, U, X, Y and Z?
To ensure we are in line with the US National Hurricane Centre naming conventions, we are not going to include names which begin with the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z. This will maintain consistency for official storm naming in the North Atlantic.

[didcotdean]

The furthest down the alphabet reached so far since the naming system was started is K.

The UK^▸ (United Kingdom) Met Office used to be the more reluctant partner to name storms, but now they have done two in a week. However, the British media started using Dennis before the Met Office declared it which might have forced its hand a bit.

Even the intensity of Ciara ranks only at the rarity of a once a year storm which was not really that exceptional apart from it taking a more southerly track than typical.

[Timmer]

Even the intensity of Ciara ranks only at the rarity of a once a year storm which was not really that exceptional apart from it taking a more southerly track than typical.

Almost more noteworthy for the rain in the North of the country that bought flooding than the wind though there was plenty of that as well. Concerning that 'Dennis' could be bringing a lot of rain over the weekend leading to further concerns of flooding in vulnerable areas.