The storm that continues to intensity on approach to the NW UK, could end up in the top 10 list of strongest North Atlantic storms on record with pressure rapidly falling at an astonishing rate of 2-4mb per hour. This storm system is so gigantic, that while it poured over many parts of the UK this morning, it’s tail, also brought flooding rain to parts of the US Mid-Atlantic, yes, nearly 3,000 miles away.

This is the same system which brought record heat up the US Eastern Seaboard and one of the worst ice storms to southern Ontario in years. How has it made it across the Atlantic so fast? Because it was transported across the Atlantic, exiting the east coast of North America aboard an astonishing 275 mph jet stream, generated by an incredible temperature difference.

Check out this incredible satellite image captured via the Live Earth App as the sun came up over the Atlantic.

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Here’s another stunning satellite image which clearly shows the cloud from this low extending all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. It is not every day you seen this, amazing!

This storm system has already produced flooding rainfall and wind gusts in excess of 100 mph over the Scottish Highlands and 90 mph along the South Coast of England while heavy snow produced nasty driving conditions across Trans-Pennine and Highland routes today.

Here was the scene along the A9 at Dalwhinnie in the Central Highlands today.

The models have been relentless for the best part of a week now at taking this system pressure into rare sub-930mb territory. A depth of pressure I failed to believe but it would appear this low will deepen into rare territory and will likely end up the deepest low to affect the UK since the mighty storm of January 1993 which saw pressure drop to 914mb to the north of Scotland.

Here is the very latest sea level pressure chart off the ECMWF through 06Z tomorrow morning.

The strongest winds and driving rains today have been across Southern Britain with the leading edge of the system swinging east but as that deepening centre gets closer to Northwest Scotland, so the core of strongest winds sweep in bringing a spell of gales or severe gales across much of Scotland, Northern England, Ireland and Northern Ireland with gusts widely of 60-70 mph, 80 along the Northern Irish coast, 90+ along the NW coast of Scotland and the Western Isles.

Here’s the latest 10m wind gusts according to the ECMWF by Christmas Eve.

Note the strong winds continue tonight through the English Channel.

By mid day tomorrow, the strongest winds are focused in two areas. Through the Solway Firth into Northwest England and NW Scotland. I hope I am wrong, but I feel these wind gusts are too low. However, it’s worth noting that the wind field with this thing appears to be relatively small given the intensity of the low. In other words, we’ll likely have seen far less powerful storms but they’ll have packed stronger winds than what this system will do.

The streamline chart shows strongest winds confined to the coast and NW corner as well as out over the sea. It will be interesting to see whether the model is having problems seeing the wind with this thing. Could well be stronger over land than it thinks…

Snow will continue to be an issue over higher ground of Northern England and Scotland with sleet and wet snow mixing at low levels in the heavier bursts tonight and tomorrow.

Enjoy the relative calm Christmas and Boxing Day. Check out the next low which sweeps in from the SW later Thursday into Friday! This could be another significant hitter. Note the pressure…

With this continued bombardment of Atlantic storms, a LOT of rain will continue to soak an already saturated ground across most of the UK.

Here’s the predicted rainfall total through the next 7 days.

See last night’s post for a glance at the longer term and the expected turn to colder in January!

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Tags: atlantic storm, Europe Storm, UK Storm