Good luck Ian with this one. I will be thinking of you.

One or two quite eerily powerful gusts in the last 5-10 minutes.

As you say midnight to 3am will be a scary time.

Think this is average wind speeds

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/royaume-uni/vent-moyen/24h.htm

Ian, the wind is not going to be a direct southerly - its will end up more SW after midnight so your roof "should" be safe.  If youre not enjoying it, stay off here as TWO will only serve to remind you of this potentially historical storm.

To answer your question - yes you are worrying too much, at least at the moment.

WI

The Friday storm has moved back north again

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1021.png

Starting to compact around that s/e corner wind really starting to get here in gusts but im a southern softy

http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-3.06,53.60,3000

But then there's yet another nasty one on Sunday! http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1501.png

On my first call out already. Don't know what yet, but it's Ramsgate.

Already worse than the St Jude storm. Surely a Red warning must now be issued. If this doesnt warrant one, then nothing will

Awww, thanks for all the replies, guys,

Steve.  Actually, my mum is being remarkably calm, I'm the jitty one.

WI, you have a point there. Reading all these horror stories and scary looking charts is only serving to make me even more on edge - so I will log off for tonight and then it'll all be over when I come back on in here tomorrow morning. I may even do the same thing with facebook, as well as closing the curtains and taking my hearing aids off.

But before I do that, indeed, we all are in the same boat so be safe everyone and fingers crossed that we'll get through this with the minimum of problems.

A few more strikes for Ireland seems to be the two different air masses mixing

http://www.eldoradocountyweather.com/forecast/europe/europelightningradar.html

Cold front's gone through, all gone quite ..... dunno what all the fuss was about

The frontal wave is the problem

Lost a ridge tile from the roof whilst I was on a conference call with work about an hour ago. Huge gusts of winds. This is about the only weather type I dislike! Stay safe out there.

UKMO deepens the storm tomorrow and moves it more SE meaning central scotland is right in the firing line

http://f1.nwstatic.co.uk/forum/uploads/monthly_12_2013/post-9615-0-39250000-1387815404.gif

I have to take that line home. Not sure when I will be able to leave the office. Fingers crossed...

Wind quitened down noticeably here, so I suspect the CF is through. Power is still at a low ebb, but running, just! I think we'll be on the edge of the stronger stuff tonight, but mobiles are charged, matches and candles handy, and a fire is burning away in the grate  Stay safe, everyone.

more or less Gusts of 60 mph acroos the smoke which is high with shelter slighty greater other s/eastern areas @1600

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/observations/city-of-london-greater-london#?tab=last24hours&fcTime=1387670400

Using my source of information the 12z GFS has upgraded things a tad.

The previous highest progged of a sustained 47mph wind has now become a 49mph sustained southerly at 00z.

http://wxweb.meteostar.com/sample/sample.shtml?text=EGMD

FWIW and as a comparison, the St Jude Storm on 28th October peaked at a SW 43mph sustained from this particular source of information.

This is going to be bad.

EDIT...As an aside to todays storm and the one we are keeping an eye on for the 27th I notice that there is now ANOTHER nasty storm being progged for Sunday 29th December...45mph

Stay safe everyone

Two short power cuts in the last hour - very unusual for here.
Gusts still around 55mph with a peak of 62mph about 45mins ago.

Just a normal breeze here in the East Midlands so far though it was gusty with the rain earlier on.