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Record-breaking gusts of up to 122mph have uprooted trees and felled power lines across the UK and Ireland, reportedly claiming the life of one man in County Wexford. Why has Storm Eunice been so severe? Hayley Fowler and Colin Manning at Newcastle University model the effects of climate change on UK weather and suggest that a little-known weather phenomenon called a sting jet is partly to blame. These unpredictable airstreams can cause intense winds but are difficult to represent in climate models, which is why, they argue, global climate modelling underestimates the threat of violent wind storms to the UK in a warming world.
Thankfully, weather forecasting is now so advanced that meteorologists were able to predict Eunice four days before it made landfall, says Hannah Cloke, a professor of hydrology at the University of Reading. By Wednesday, forecasters were able to warn of severe disruption before the storm had even begun to form in the Atlantic, and red warnings from the Met Office on Thursday gave people in the storm’s eventual path 24 hours’ notice. Cloke credits the improved
resolution of supercomputer models, a ballooning fleet of satellites and aircraft collecting data, and the colour-coded warning system for the robust forecast. It may have helped the UK avoid a similar outcome to the 1987 “Great Storm”, which killed 22
people, she says.
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Jack Marley
Environment + Energy Editor
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Porthcawl Lighthouse in South Wales is buffeted by waves during Storm Eunice’s approach.
Leighton Collins/Shutterstock
Hayley J. Fowler, Newcastle University; Colin Manning, Newcastle University
Sting jets are poorly understood, but could have a big influence on Britain’s future winter storms.
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Jacob King / Alamy
Hannah Cloke, University of Reading
Scientists have unimaginably more powerful supercomputers than their predecessors.
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From the archive
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Kate Sambrook, University of Leeds; Thomas Richardson, University of Leeds
New and stronger evidence confirms global warming will mean more intense and frequent floods, heatwaves and droughts.
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Alexander Baker, University of Reading
Storms which originate in the tropics and reach Europe aren’t as rare as scientists once thought.
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Elizabeth Lewis, Newcastle University
We’re more likely to remember a storm with a human face – and will prepare for it.
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Keith Browning, University of Leeds
At the time, their existence was unknown.
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Hannah Cloke, University of Reading
I helped forecast disaster – but nothing prepared for me what happened next.
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