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The Great Sheffield Gale, 1962


Guest tsavo

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I may need to see a copy of tomorrows Star - either scanned or posted - pretty please - anyone ??

Yes, tomorrow night is the 50th anniversary of the gale

Are we sure there will be something in it for the exact anniversary of the gale?

Or will they hold it over for Saturdays Retro?

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The Gale, I remember it well (ish). Hopefully The Star will have something, sometime - can't pop down the local newsagents - if it's online I'd appreciate a link.

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The Gale, I remember it well (ish). Hopefully The Star will have something, sometime - can't pop down the local newsagents - if it's online I'd appreciate a link.

I only get The Star on Saturdays, mainly for The Retro, so if I miss something about the gale, like you Richard, I would like it scanned and posted on here if possible.

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But in the 50th Anniversary Star it has gone back up to 4 again, and it names them.

Jack Johnson, aged 17

Shirley Hill (aged 30?)

Ida Stubbs, aged 57

Beryl Dickinson, aged 19

Star also says that the total number of wartime prefabricated houses completely destroyed was 60.

I suppose it depends what you mean by completely destroyed, but that seems low to me.

Entire streets on the Arbourthorne were destroyed, and of course there were other prefab estates around the City which suffered similar losses.

Then again as a kid a few houses seemed to stretch a long way down a long street. But the rows of wrecked buildings we played in seemed endless.

One of the criticisms of the prefabs in more recent times, used against the excalibur estate in London, is that single floor detached bugalows (which is what the prefabs were) each having it's own front and rear garden space take up more room and get less people per acre than more modern, more densely packed or high rise housing.

From a quality of life point of view that is a good thing, but from a greedy landlord or property developer I suppose it would be seen as a bad thing as it means less houses and less profitable income per acre.

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I only get The Star on Saturdays, mainly for The Retro, so if I miss something about the gale, like you Richard, I would like it scanned and posted on here if possible.

Got The Star on Thursday, a nice double page spread of stuff on the gale for it's 50th anniversary.

Also in the Retro today, another 4 pages of stuff on the gale.

Many thanks to The Star for this.

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Got The Star on Thursday, a nice double page spread of stuff on the gale for it's 50th anniversary.

Also in the Retro today, another 4 pages of stuff on the gale.

Many thanks to The Star for this.

Yes I agree, many thanks to the Star.

There's a lot of youngsters out there who know nothing of this because it was before

their time but I know some of them will be very interested my own daughter included.

She always buys the Star on a Saturday so she and her husband can read the Retro.

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The Sheffield Gale gets a mention in the Daily Telegraph today.

"The cause of this exceptional weather is known as the lee wave effect. The airstream covering the British Isles had travelled from the sub tropical Atlantic, having originated some 1000 miles southwest of the Azores. It was therefore an unusually warm airflow although near the Earth's surface it had been cooled by several degrees during its journey across the ocean. This sort of temperature profile suppresses turbulence and the wind flow becomes strongly stratified. When such an airflow crosses a mountain range, standing waves are established downwind of the range. Sheffield lay under a wave trough with the air flow squeezed - and therefore accelerated - between the base of the trough and the ground beneath".

Still not sure about the lee wave effect but I do remember being sent off to school that morning and not being able to get round a tree that had fallen across the bottom of the road. I thought that might get me out of school that day but my mother told me to walk the long way round - no chance of a day off.

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I have an article in at work about lee waves - complete gibberish - will scan and post. Basically wind blows over some range of hills, gets trapped by valleys on the lee-side and creates hell.

The Sheffield Gale gets a mention in the Daily Telegraph today.

"The cause of this exceptional weather is known as the lee wave effect. The airstream covering the British Isles had travelled from the sub tropical Atlantic, having originated some 1000 miles southwest of the Azores. It was therefore an unusually warm airflow although near the Earth's surface it had been cooled by several degrees during its journey across the ocean. This sort of temperature profile suppresses turbulence and the wind flow becomes strongly stratified. When such an airflow crosses a mountain range, standing waves are established downwind of the range. Sheffield lay under a wave trough with the air flow squeezed - and therefore accelerated - between the base of the trough and the ground beneath".

Still not sure about the lee wave effect but I do remember being sent off to school that morning and not being able to get round a tree that had fallen across the bottom of the road. I thought that might get me out of school that day but my mother told me to walk the long way round - no chance of a day off.

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I have an article in at work about lee waves - complete gibberish - will scan and post. Basically wind blows over some range of hills, gets trapped by valleys on the lee-side and creates hell.

I thought that you had already scanned and posted several items on lee waves already, starting from post #124 in the present topic.

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This is another (more recent, but mentions Sheffield), didn't get logged on to my computerator til 2:15 this afternoon; remind me tomorrow and I'll try my best.

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Also in the Retro today, another 4 pages of stuff on the gale.

Many thanks to The Star for this.

Trust The Star to come up with some fantastic gale memories for me which I had almost forgotten.

In the Saturday RETRO gale edition they reprinted a part of the original 1962 Hurricane special edition as I had wanted them to and hoped they would.

In amongst the old 1962 pictures was this one of 2 yound lads at the Hurlfield School gale refugees and evacuation centre.

I immediately recognised the lad on the right facing out of shot. It was my old next door neighbour and best mate at the time and someone I have not seen now for the best part of 40 years, -so The Star had really made this Sheffield Gale special very special for me by printing this.

The caption with the picture, the original 1962 caption calls them "brothers David and William Trigg"

Just to correct The Star on this, albeit 50 years late, -

Firstly, their surname is TWIGG not TRIGG

Secondly, the lad on the right, my friend, was never referred to as "William Twigg", to everybody, not just his friends like me but also his parents, his teachers at school, you know, everybody he was called BILLY TWIGG

This is my friend Billy Twigg.

If I remember correctly as well as being photographhed for The Star in this picture he also appeared with Mike Scott on Scene at 6:30 where he said some comment about having a day off school and all the houses being blown down.

Their prefab was next door to ours, at the bottom of the Algar Place cul-de sac. Being low down the damage they sustained was minimal, - I think they had 3 broken windows which were quickly replaced.

However, both the Twigg brothers parents were in poor health, their father being disabled and getting around in a little blue invacar 3 wheeler so although their house survived they were high on the priority list for rehousing into more suitable accomodation. They were moved out off the estate before the end of 1962 and another family called Mr & Mrs Bullas were moved in for the remaining 3 years or so before all the prefabs were cleared.

Since they moved out 50 years ago I have only ever seen Billy about 3 or 4 times, all mainly just in passing, and all in the 1970's.

However as young lads that were friends we had a brilliant time in the summer of '62 playing in the prefab wrecks with other lads and lasses from the estate.

Thank to The Star for printing this picture which brought back clear memories of a time long ago, - enough memories for a few more posts.

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Article, figure 5.11

I have an article in at work about lee waves - complete gibberish - will scan and post. Basically wind blows over some range of hills, gets trapped by valleys on the lee-side and creates hell.

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Article, figure 5.11

Not the same lee wave stuff you posted before then, some new stuff here.

this article is better than the previous one, more about metrology, topography and climate than mathematics and quantum physics so it describes more accurately what we are looking for, - a lee wave wind like the one that struck Sheffield 50 years ago.

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The Star published a "Special" on 24th February, this has been posted previously, but the images were small.

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The Star published a "Special" on 24th February, this has been posted previously, but the images were small.

Thanks Stuart,

Nice to have a full size high resolution version of this that we can actually read the text and captions to

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Over 2 years with no new stuff in this topic, - but recently 3 new images have come to my attention which are available on www.picturesheffield.com and Sheffield Library Services.

As these images are copyright I am only allowed to post links to them, and not the actual pictures, - that's fair enough, BUT I am doing them a service here, because in their listings all 3 pictures are given as

"1962 Gale Damaged Prefabs, LOCATION UNKNOWN"

Now it just so happens I can identify the exact location and the exact spot where the photographer must have been stood to within a couple of feet to take these images.

I will of course let them know the location

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This first picture

http://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?action=zoomWindow&keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;u07919&prevUrl=

shows the bottom of Algar Drive.

There are only 2 cul de sacs on the Arbourthorne that terminate in a small roundabout, Algar Place and Algar Drive.

We lived at the bottom of Algar Place, and these are not our house or our neighbours, - they are the ones in the matching positions on Algar Drive.

Note that both the 2 houses left and centre have been ripped in two and have lost both their bedrooms. Behind these houses is the open Arbourthorne Playing field and they would have taken the full force of any wind coming across it.

The other house on the right would have stood a better chance, being lower down (as our old house was), but that VHF Band III aerial looks a bit bent

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The second picture

http://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?action=zoomWindow&keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;u07923&prevUrl=

is also Algar Drive but higher up the hill and on the opposite side of the road

Its location is given away by Arbourthorne Playing Fields with that row of brick built houses on Northern Avenue. Just past the last of these houses as Northern Avenue turns into Spring Lane the entrance to City Road Cemetery can be seen in the distance.

Note that there are prefabs going all the way down Northern Avenue to roughly where the old football pavilion was later built. There was no Vulcan boozer at the time, just prefabs lining the field edge on Northern Avenue. It goes without saying it predates those 2 tower blocks that would have been in the picture to the left of the Cemetery entrance.

As I have stated previously the prefabs lower down the hill (Algar Drive) appear to be relatively unscathed, but higher up, being more exposed the damage increases to almost total. The one closest the camera is badly damaged beyond repair, the one just below is almost completely destroyed with very little exterior wall remaining. Note that both these 2 closest, badly damaged prefabs have lost their roofs. - I know exactly where one of the roofs ended up because it came pretty close to demolishing our own house.

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