By Paul Homewood
There have been attempts to compare Storm Eowyn with the Boxing Day Storm of 1998.
Such comparisons are absurd, as the STV News Archive reported a few years ago:
Do you remember the great Boxing Day storm of 1998?
A powerful storm struck Scotland on December 26, 1998 causing widespread damage across the country.
As it hit Ireland, forecasters at the time said it was the most rapid pressure drop ever recorded.
The storm named ‘Hurricane Stephen’ developed quickly and tracked rapidly northeast on the morning of the 26th.
By midnight it was over north east Scotland. Strathclyde Fire and Rescue took over 700 emergency calls.
Large parts of Scotland lost access to electricity, with some supplies not restored until the New Year.
Six electricity companies in Great Britain declared a systems emergency as a result of the damage.
Winds hit around 110mph at Prestwick Airport with speeds of 93mph recorded in Glasgow where a large part of St Stephen’s Church’s spire in Bath Street came crashing down.
The reactors at Hunterston B nuclear power station were also shut down when power was lost.
Severe winds and sea spray had disabled all four power lines to the site. The nuclear power station was forced to declare an emergency.
https://archive.news.stv.tv/archive/1433940-do-you-remember-the-great-boxing-day-storm-of-1998.html
The storm had already brought 110 mph winds to N Ireland. The highest gusts there last week were 92 mph at Killowen.
As for Scotland, the Met Office reported gusts of over 100 mph in places and apart from the 100 mph measured on a hilltop, nowhere got anywhere near 90 mph during Eowyn.
But the interesting thing is the statement made by the Met Office shortly after the Boxing Day storm to the inquiry into electricity supply interruptions:
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https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/ofgem-publications/47826/2553-boxstorm.pdf
So according to the Met Office at the time, storms like Boxing Day were likely to occur every four years on average somewhere or other in Britain, common events in other words.
Ironically the Met Office also stated that the probability of such storms would double in future!
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What used to be a run of the mill event now appears to be a rarity!