What happened
The winter of 2013 to 2014 was the wettest in England and Wales in records going back to 1766. A strong jet stream steered storm after storm across the British Isles, and the Somerset Levels and the Thames valley flooded for weeks. Two of the fiercest came in the middle of February: one on the 12th, which brought a red wind warning to parts of Wales and north-west England, and another on the night of Valentine’s Day. Storms weren’t given names in the UK until the Met Office began naming them in 2015.
At this station the gust on 12 February reached 44 mph at Wed 12 Feb, 16:35, the strongest it has recorded, matched only by Storm Ciara on 9 February 2020.
Gusts and the average wind
A weather station measures the wind two ways: the average speed over a few minutes, and the gust, the strongest few seconds. Gusts happen because the wind doesn’t flow smoothly: faster air from higher up keeps tumbling down to the ground in bursts. Buildings and trees make it tumble more. On 12 February the gusts reached 44 mph, yet the average wind here never got above 15 mph: a sign of how sheltered, and so how gusty, this garden is. More on wind.
Why the gusts come just after the low
The strongest winds blow where the pressure changes fastest from place to place, and behind a low’s centre, as the pressure starts to climb again, it often changes fastest of all. So the worst gusts tend to come just after the pressure bottoms out, and the station shows it in both storms:
| Storm | Lowest pressure | When | Strongest gust | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 February | 981.5 hPa | Wed 12 Feb, 15:40 | 44 mph | Wed 12 Feb, 16:35 |
| Valentine’s night | 971.6 hPa | Fri 14 Feb, 23:25 | 43 mph | Sat 15 Feb, 00:15 |
Over the week the station found a likely cold front at Mon 10 Feb, 14:15, a likely cold front at Tue 11 Feb, 11:30 and a likely warm front at Fri 14 Feb, 16:45. More on air pressure.
A winter of floods
No single storm here was exceptional for rain: 16.0 mm fell over these 7 days. The floods came from the run of them, week after week, with the ground already full of water, so the rain had nowhere to go but into the rivers. Storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin show a similar run in 2022. More on rain.
What to look for in the charts
- Pressure: two dips, the second, on Valentine’s night, the deeper.
- Wind: the gusts far above the average, and their peaks just after each dip in the pressure.
- Temperature: mild for February, in the Atlantic air the storms brought.
- Rain: in bursts with each storm.