It was a dark and stormy night. Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford, 1830
Saturn’s storms are of epic proportions. Solar Empire: Edge of Darkness, 1997
Saturn is famous for its magnificent rings. But it’s a little mysterious when it comes to its atmosphere. But if you wait a few years Saturn will put on a storm so magnificent it would impress Mother Nature herself. It’s called the Great White Spot. A gigantic storm that develops every thirty years on Saturn’s surface, eventually covering its entire equator. The Universe s2e15: Wildest Weather in the Cosmos, History 2008
Storm and stress [Sturm und Drang] Christopher Kaufmann, 1753-95
They sicken of the calm who know the storm. Dorothy Parker, Sunset Gun: Poems
There is peace even in the storm. Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
I have heard a greater storm in a boiling pot. Athenaeus, Deipnosophistæ
He used to raise a storm in a teapot. Cicero, De Legibus III: 16
Bursts as a wave that from the clouds impends,
And swell’d with tempests on the ship descends;
White are the decks with foam; the winds aloud
Howl o’er the masts, and sing through every shroud:
Pale, trembling, tir’d, the sailors freeze with fears;
And instant death on every wave appears. Homer, The Iliad XV:752
The winds grow high;
Impending tempests charge the sky;
The lightning flies, the thunder roars;
And big waves lash the frightened shores. Matthew Prior, The Lady’s Looking-Glass
For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms and did my duty faithfully. Henry David Thoreau, Walden
‘Wuthering’ being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun. Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
A blight had fallen on the trees and shrubs; and the wind, at length beginning to break the unnatural stillness that had prevailed all day, sighed heavily from time to time, as though foretelling in grief the ravages of the coming storm. The bat skimmed in fantastic flights through the heavy air, and the ground was alive with crawling things, whose instinct brought them forth to swell and fatten in the rain. Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby
The rain and hail pattered against the glass; the chimneys quaked and rocked; the crazy casement rattled with the wind, as though an impatient hand inside were striving to burst it open. But no hand was there, and it opened no more. ibid.
In November 1703 a massive storm tore across the south coast destroying everything in its wake in a maelstrom of chaos. Which spawned wind speeds of over a 140 miles an hour. The only bona-fide hurricane ever to hit our shores. Shipwrecks: Britain’s Sunken History I: Home Waters to High Seas, BBC 2016
It’s just before 6 p.m. on Monday October 29 … In a moment John will film images that will become world famous. The footage of the largest Atlantic superstorm on record captured by those who witnessed it. Stacey Dooley, Superstorm USA: Caught on Camera, BBC 2012
Haiti in the Caribbean was first to feel the effects: flooding killed 52 people, caused food shortages and made 200,000 homeless. ibid.
Every storm is different now because of the climate crisis. Al Gore, An Inconvenient Sequel, 2017
There’s a quiet storm
And it never felt like this before
There’s a quiet storm
That is you.
There’s a quiet storm
And it never felt this hot before
Giving me something that’s taboo
(Sometimes I think you’re just too good for me).
You give me the sweetest taboo
That’s why I’m in love with you … Sade, The Sweetest Taboo
It’s the last night of 1953; Britain is under attack. From the Shetlands to the Thames Estuary few are spared the impact of an enormous storm bearing down on Britain. This vast storm is the engine behind a national disaster. The Great Flood of ’53, Channel 5 2023
Off the north coast of Scotland a powerful storm pushes south. ibid.
Princess Victoria ferry: Lifeboats and survivors float in the sea for hours … The greatest loss of life in British waters since World War II. ibid.
A new and dangerous phenomenon develops: tidal surge … The surge arrives in Norfolk … A national disaster. ibid.
The Fastnet race of 1979 is one that its competitors will never forget. An iconic sailing race around the notorious Fastnet rock. In the summer of 1979 it was hit by a storm that no forecaster saw coming. Killer Storm: The Fastnet Disaster, Channel 5 2023
Four days that changed yacht racing … 300 boats hit by a one in a generation sea-storm that took the lives of 21 people. ibid.
‘No idea of the carnage awaiting.’ ibid. Fred Dinenage
‘An absolute beast of a storm.’ ibid. historian
‘Storm force 10 imminent.’ ibid. forecast
Nimrod aircraft would direct the operation. ibid.
We were warned. But nothing could prepare us. The 25th January 1990 saw Britain hit by a storm like never before. Leaving in its wake destruction, devastation and death, hammering the UK with extreme winds and rain. Britain’s Killer Hurricane of 1990, Channel 5 2024
Limited forecasting technology meant the extent of the storm’s power couldn’t be accurately predicted by meteorologists. ibid.