Many of us will remember that epic day @ West Kirby January 18th 2007 when Euro Storm Kyrill tracked across the northern UK and on into Europe delivering winds in excess of 100 knots on its southern flank, leaving wide spread damage in its wake.

Many hard core speedsurfers gathered @ West Kirby that day to face one of the toughest challanges that mother nature conjures up from time to time, Speedsurfing the "weather bomb".

The morning of Jan 18 2007 saw winds peaking at West Kirby @ over 80kts lasting into the early afternoon. The gathered crew sitting it it out, with the speed course blown out with hurricane force winds tearing the top off the lake and delivering it several hundred metres downstream into whatever obstacle dared to stand in its way.

During the afternoon the winds abated to storm force 10, providing an opportunity for the crew to set sail and tame the beast of beasts.

50 knots was still unchartered territory for Speedsurfers back then. But one man who dared to believe came oh so close to breaking that epic milestone - Martin Van Meurs the legend that he is!

Martin's session log is linked below. Sadly the "view ranking of the day" delivers "no data found" which is a shame as many guys braved the storm and hit the water that day, a true testament to the courage and skill of the speedsurfer in "riding the wild storm"

If memory serves me correct Martin peak 1 sec speed was 49.7 knots!

https://www.gps-speedsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=user&val=14163&uid=77

So 11 years on we arrive at Jan 18 2018.

Those of you who know me .. I spent many a year Stormtracking for the UK Speed Scene with the primary objective of avoiding the dreaded "skunking"  - arriving at speed spot based on a decent forecast with the wind never materialising :(

On the radar we have a "weather bomb" on the horizon,  tracking in towards the UK Wednesday , mid atlantic @ 985mb. Early Thursday morning it will cut a track across the UK (Scotland) to be located just east of Scotland in the North Sea Thursday noon @ 955mb (ECMWF) , thats' a good 10mb deeper than Storm Kyrill 11 years ago to the date.

One to keep a close eye on ...  as all models at present (GFS, ECMWF, WRF, NAVGEM are pretty much all in agreeement. The outlier here being the MetOffice, which is unusual , as the MetOffice is usualy close to the ECMWF forecast. I'd hazard a guess that this "potential" Storm will be named Fionn (F-yunn)

Keep a weather eye on horizon :)

Not for West Kirby! The Storm will be out into the north sea Thursday before day break. Holland though, will see the stongest winds of this Storm battering in @ day break. However West Kirby looking dialed tomorrow for a decent Westerly Gale

howey, missed you mate , yer kirby blew for an hour this afternoon , but still good fun 

Hi mate, glad you managed to get out and get some decent speeds, given the bitter conditons you did good Matty!

Bit of a debacle going on here in the Met world.

MetEireann grabbed the next named storm on the list - "Fionn" for the high winds that battered into Eire 16th / 17th this was the wind that powered your session on the 17th. This was not a "storm" so to speak just high winds associated with low pressure up near Iceland and the Azores high, with a subsequent tight squeeze on the isobars over Eire and the UK.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/barometer/uk-storm-centre

The Storm that the MetOffice picked up on was heading in late Wednesday and into the early hours of Thursday morning - Jan 18th Storm. The Metoffice failed to forecast the severe winds that would sweep across the UK early Thurdsay and only issued a yellow warning for wind. And Amber warning for wind is the MetOffice's trigger to name a storm, which they failed to do, given winds up to 95mph cut a swathe across the southern half of the UK, leaving wind spread damage in its' path.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/18/met-office-criticised-not-naming-storm-battered-britain-fresh/