The centre of the depression turned towards Northern Scotland, and brought a spell of gale force winds to much of the north during the next 12 to 24 hours. The cold front had by now swept into the North Sea, followed by clearer, chilly conditions for most of the UK overnight Saturday, and into the first part of Sunday. Indeed many woke to bountiful sunshine and blue skies on the 29th, but showers had continued all night close to some western and southern coasts, thunder being reported from eastern parts of the English Channel coast. A few showers spread inland during the morning, and it was cold enough for a little snow to be mixed in over parts of northern Britain.

As would be envisaged from the pressure pattern, a period of strong winds accompanied the rain, with some of the strongest gusts experienced across Wales and southwest England e.g. 76 kts (87mph) at North Hessary Tor on Dartmoor. The centre of the depression crossed Wales and the Midlands before heading into the southern North Sea, still deepening apace. But worse was to follow. After a temporary lull across most of the south during the evening, the next wave depression was centred off southwest Ireland by midnight, and all the signs were that this would be the most damaging of the three.

During the second half of the night the new and rapidly deepening depression crossed Ireland, the Irish Sea, Wales and then on into southern parts of Northern England. Forecasts for this event were almost consistently good: the two-day forecast from the preliminary global model valid at 0600Z on the 30th predicted the intensifying depression not far from its actual position, and although rather less deep than actuality, was able to forewarn of widespread gusts between 70 and 90mph over southern areas of the UK. The 12-hour forecast from the same model, and valid at the same time, was even more successful. In between these two forecasts there was some weakening of the forecast centre, and a related tendency to keep it a little further south, as shown by the mesoscale model forecast one day ahead, again valid at 0600Z. But in such cases the forecaster is able to use continuity, as well as output from models run at other centres, to make the best judgment on the outcome. And in this case NMC forecasters maintained warnings throughout. Indeed warnings for this storm were issued as early as the start of Friday, as shown by the forecaster interpretation of model output issued at the three-day range.

As is most often the case the strongest winds were experienced to the south of the track of the centre, whilst to the north, most of Scotland, Northern Ireland and parts of northern England escaped with much calmer conditions. Wind speeds reached a peak in the early hours along the South Wales coast, touching 84kts (96mph) at Mumbles. During the next few hours the strongest winds transferred east, The Isle of Portland in Dorset reporting a gust to 81kts (93mph) at 0600Z. The strongest winds accompanied the cold front which reintroduced cooler conditions once more, passing through London between 0600 and 0700Z, and clearing into the North Sea by around 0800Z. Langdon Bay near Dover registered a gust of 76kts (87mph) between 0600 and 0700Z, and by 1000Z this site had been reporting gusts to 60kts (69mph) or more for 16 hours! At inland locations typical gust strengths were 50-70kts (57-80mph). Some structural damage accompanied these gusts, with trees brought down and roads and railways blocked. The saturated ground would not have helped as far as the trees were concerned, and many trees were still bearing enough leaves to significantly increase the impact of the gusts. The spatial variation of the gusts experienced over a 15-hour period ending at 0900Z on 30th is shown on this map.

Rain had fallen all night, and by 9am 24-hour totals of between 25 and 50mm were commonplace, with locally 75mm and more. Consequently local flooding was a widespread source of disruption during the morning rush hour on 30th. In a number of areas recent rains had already brought the situation close to breaking point, and these renewed heavy rains resulted in much more serious flooding problems, in areas as far apart as Kent, Wales and Yorkshire. The 24 hour rainfall totals are shown on this isohyet chart, i.e. lines of equal rainfall amount.

The northwest of the home counties, together with much of the South Midlands and East Anglia experienced slightly lesser gusts and rainfall figures, but another area of severe weather developed as the depression crossed Northern England, immediately to the south of the centre. The storm was still developing rapidly at this time with mean sea level pressure at its centre falling towards 950hPa. The warm and cold fronts formed a sharp apex between which was located a narrow band of warmer air from further south. Temperatures at some locations rose some 5 to 7 degrees within the hour. But as the cold front crossed, the temperature falls were even more dramatic. The depression had by now developed a wrap-around of thick cloud and heavy precipitation to the west and northwest of the centre, as is often observed during this stage of an intense development. The 0900Z radar image shows just how intense the rainfall was. This precipitation, falling into the already chilly air, was able to lower the temperature still further by evaporative cooling. And so the precipitation within this band turned first to sleet and then to snow, and swept eastwards just to the west of the retreating depression. Locally the temperature was observed to fall as much as 10 degrees within one hour, as the wind veered and strengthened and a short spell of quite heavy sleet and snow set in. Several routes were affected, notably in the Pennines. The numerical prediction models were poorer in this respect, with the predicted areal extent of wintry precipitation much less than was observed - this failing may be linked to a tendency to underpredict the rate of deepening referred to below. As for the winds, Lincolnshire bore the brunt of the second area of severe gusts, with 80kts (91mph) recorded at Donna Nook on the coast between 0900 and 1000Z, and a sustained wind speed of 51kts (58mph) at Cranwell at 0800Z.

The potent depression then moved out into the North Sea, deepening further during the morning, and reaching an estimated depth close to 941hPa by early afternoon. The intensity of the centre is graphically depicted by the 15-hour forecast for the mesoscale model, valid at 1500Z. It is fair to point out that the scale of the deepening after 0600Z was underpredicted by most of the model runs. Wind strengths over the sea increased still further, leading to sustained winds in excess of hurricane force. The storm finally began to lessen in intensity as it neared the south of Norway.