The UK’s highest low‐level wind speed re‐examined: the Fraserburgh gust of 13 February 1989

Abstract

Accurate assessment of extreme wind gusts is important for many infrastructure requirements, particularly in building design standards and for insurance purposes. In a previous paper (Aylott et al., 2020), Northern Ireland's record wind gust -108kn (56ms −1 ) recorded at Kilkeel on 12 January 1974was critically re-examined, and found to be almost certainly incorrect due to instrumental error or a power surge. A recommendation was made that other longstanding United Kingdom record wind gusts should also be independently re-examined to assess their veracity. In this paper the arguments for and against the authenticity of the current record low-level wind gust for Scotland, and the UK national record, namely 123kn (63ms −1 ) recorded at the Kinnaird Head Lighthouse at Fraserburgh on 13 February 1989, are reviewed. Two 'gusts' >100kn were probably record artefacts owing to brief power supply interruptions to the recording anemograph, and accordingly neither should remain included in the list of national wind speed records.

‘Hurricane’ Debbie – 60 years on: a fresh analysis

“…Those records listed in bold denote all‐time station records which still stand today. Here, it is worth noting that the Dines Pressure Tube anemometer was used at all Irish Meteorological Service SYNOP stations in the 1960s – and that there was no double‐switching practiced (see Aylott et al ., 2020; Burt, 2021). Before the changeover to cup anemometers in the 1990s, Logue (1989) noted that cups generally recorded lower speeds in wind gusts but higher mean windspeeds, compared to the Dines instrument.…”