Weather forecasters are being criticised by people in the North East for failing to issue a weather warning for the howling gales - with gusts that reached 82mph - that battered the area on Thursday (January 13).
In a tweet, the Met Office said "the wind continues to be strong this evening" - and shared a league table of the highest wind speeds recorded round the UK. It showed that gusts of 82mph had been measured at Brizlee Wood, near Alnwick in Northumberland - with winds reaching 70mph in Cleveland.
The national weather forecaster had issued a yellow weather warning for parts of the north west - but not for the north east, which saw some of the country's strongest winds. The warning it did issue read: "Winds will increase from the west during Thursday afternoon, with a period of gales, locally, severe gales developing across Northern Ireland during the evening.
"Winds will then strengthen through the Irish Sea and affect coasts of northwest England and northwest Wales before easing across all areas through the early hours of Friday morning. Gusts of 45-55 mph are likely for many, with 65-70 mph gusts possible for exposed coasts and hills.
"As well as the strong winds, some heavy showers are likely, making for some difficult travelling conditions. Large waves could be an additional hazard."
One observer noted: "Wow it is windy in Newcastle!!!!"
Jay, whose Twitter account is adorned with the Angel of the North, said: "I thought the office was gonna blow away just before I left at 20:00."
And Jords complained: "No yellow warnings for the first strong storm of the year, yet if this was hitting London it’d have a name and stay-at-home warnings, ridiculous!!!"
A Twitter account called Weather Diary also took the Met office to task over its choice of words. It tweeted: "The wind doesn't continue to be just 'strong this evening', it's blowing gale force 8 at quite a few sites and near gale force 7 at many others.
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