Storm Barra packed a punch

The Spanish trawler Nuevo Laredo riding out the storm
near Ardnatrush Beg, Glengarriff, County Cork (RTE)

Yesterday, we experienced a weather bomb. A fast developing system that hit hard and stayed around for a while. Our sailing club recorded wind gusts of more than 77 knots (143 kph or 89 mph) which is hurricane force. Lucky for us, the storm veered a bit more south than forecast, so we had a light easterly quadrant in the morning and northwesterly in the afternoon and overnight. Once again as with Lorenzo, the eye passed directly over us in Clew Bay.

Storm Barra's eye passing  over Clew Bay

We went to Westport in the morning and got our booster vaccinations then did our food shopping all in light E wind and showers. Then we braced for the worst as we were in the Red Storm Warning zone for the evening. We are protected from the NW by the hill behind our house and it appears there was no damage. We hope Aleria is okay in Kilrush, where strong wind gusts were recorded. 

By mid-afternoon, we had lashing rain and intense winds out of the NW, Our barometer bottomed out at 956 hPa.  A 'weather bomb' is an unofficial term for a low-pressure system whose central pressure falls 24 millibars in 24 hours in a process known as explosive cyclogenesis. In the case of Storm Barra, the pressure dropped from around 1,006 millibars on Monday morning to 956 millibars 24 hours later, according to surface weather analysis by the NOAA's Ocean Prediction Center. So I looked at our barometer precisely at the centre of the storm.

More than 24 hours later the wind is still blowing pretty hard at around 30 knots but gusting only into the 40s. It is bitterly cold even though it's 7.5 C but the wind chill really bites. Thankfully it's dry. We took a walk around the property to survey and saw no damage on the south-facing land. We'll have to check the north side tomorrow.

Met Eireann reported that Newport had 31 mm of rain yesterday but the land is not sopping wet as it was last week. The wind must have blown a lot of moisture away. They recorded gusts of 120 kph but they are further inland. Overall it was an interesting day. It started with a blanket of snow but I missed that. By the time I got up, it had melted as the temperature rapidly increased. By the end of the day, some 60,000 homes were without power. A violent gust of 156km/h was recorded off the coast of West Cork where scores of fishing vessels were anchored riding it out in Bantry Bay. 

Here are a few pictures from RTE. Here's a video from the lighthouse maintenance workers who got stuck out at Fastnet when the chopper couldn't pick them up. 

Bantry was the worst hit with flooding. The promenade in Galway at Salthill was flooded at high tide - a high spring in tandem with the storm. A huge fleet of Spanish and French fishing trawlers sought shelter in Bantry Bay.  It was a pretty wild day. 

Apparently, the best-known weather bomb to hit Ireland was the Fastnet rock storm in August of 1979 when the pressure dropped by 40 MB in only 24 hours. Only 86 of 303 starting boats in the Fastnet Race finished: 194 retired; 25 boats sank or were disabled and abandoned; 75 turned upside down; 5 boats were lost ‘believed sunk’ and 15 sailors drowned. It was that storm that prompted an overhaul of safety recommendations for offshore sailing yachts. Barra dropped another 10 MB more than the Fastnet Storm. So for all those who poo-pooed the Met Eireann warnings, be glad you thought it was less severe than they promised. If you'd been at sea, you might have said differently. 

                    Met Eireann WEATHER DATA FOR 07-DEC-2021

Station                 Rain Max Min Sun     Wind         Gust

                        mm         oC oC hr Kts (Km/h)    Kts (Km/h)    

Belmullet         16.8         7.0 1.5 0.0 20.3 (38)         55 (102)     

Knock Airport         22.8         5.5 0.0 18.4 (34)         57 (106)   

Newport Furnace 31.0         6.9 0.8 22.5 (42)         65 (120)