While much of the UK has been lashed by storm-force winds for the past few days, we’ve had nothing more than our usual gales - until this morning.
I was awoken at 0430 by a huge whump, felt the house rock through the bed, and heard the roof groaning in a way that I’ve not heard before.
When you remember that the house and steading buildings have two-foot thick granite walls, that’s some force.
At the same time, I could distinctly hear the wind through the walls and double-glazed windows - even inside the house it sounded like a muffled turbine while the gusts roared like a truck without a muffler working hard to go uphill.
I got out of bed to do a quick check and, upon popping my head out the back door, quickly confirmed the muffled turbine theory. The wind was howling constantly through and over the steading, with the mature cypress along the dyke bent hard over the road.
With wind of that force inside the shelter of the steading, I decided it was definitely not worth putting my boots and jacket on to check the chickens and pigs on the hillside. They would have to take their chances until the wind dropped enough that I could be reasonably safe.
So, I went back to bed where the OH finally awoke and, hearing the strength of the wind, asked if we should bring the boys downstairs.
I said to leave them asleep unless the wind picked up further or the roof started to come apart.
Fortunately, after about 20 minutes the wind eased to its normal strength and while it has remained strong, we’ve had no repetition of last night’s “breeze”!
Given that our usual winter gales have gusts of 60-70mph (96-112km/h), I suspect the wind that hit this morning was almost certainly gusting to more than 90mph (144km/h). Certainly, the news on the radio this morning was reporting gusts of up to 99mph so 90 here would not be surprising.
Fortunately, there appears to be little damage this morning, thanks mainly to the solid construction of the house and steading plus my belt and braces approach to building animal housing.
I really must get an anemometer!
I’m pleased to see you didn’t end up flying across Scotland into the Irish Sea. It must have been just a wee bit blustery!!!
No chance of landing in the Irish Sea. It was coming from the north-west so I would have landed in the North Sea somewhere off Dundee!
I woke up this morning, at roughly the same time, with the same noises and the double glazed window bowing and the wooden frames creaking in the gusts. Fortunately only a couple of slates came off the roof.
Here is hoping the animals got through the night OK mate. I like your belt and braces approach too. Hope it eases quickly and we are thinking of you as our strong winds gust at a mere 20-30 kmh just now.
A few branches came down from trees, a second-hand chicken run had its plastic sheeting roof stripped off, some heavy rolls of fencing were blown about and one of the chicken huts had moved a few inches. That was the extent of the damage.
I wouldn’t want to live in a modern house right on top of the hill as so many visitors propose, though. The views would be great for the short time that the house was there!
Hello!
I arrived here via Beansprouts.
Here in Wales we too had severe winds…. and we live in a modern house (right on cue the hailstorm has arrived and is battering the window) and feared the collapse of the gable end as the creaking and cracking suggested somethign ‘different’.
Glad you survived unscathed
What a great site! I’ll be back to follow your progress