Great Storm of 1987 from Portland Bill, Dorset to Cromer, Norfolk the return period of the respective gusts were under 10 years. Sustained winds speeds greater than 75 mph were recorded for over an hour in southern Britain. According to the Beaufort scale of wind intensities, this storm had winds of hurricane force 12 (73 mph or greater); as the term "hurricane" refers to tropical cyclones originating in the North Atlantic or North Pacific, the descriptor "great storm" has tended to be reserved for those storms in recent years reaching this velocity. Hurricanes have a very different wind profile and distribution from storms, and
Cyclone Kyrill Aberdaron on the Lleyn peninsula, 122 km/h (76 mph) at Mumbles near Swansea and winds of 101 km/h (63 mph) at St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan. The German Meteorological Service had advised people to stay indoors and avoid unnecessary trips on 18 January, and wind strengths of up to 12 on the Beaufort scale were seen across the Netherlands and Germany as the storm made landfall. The storm moved across the German states of Lower Saxony, Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia first, then spread across the whole country in the evening hours of 18 January. Wind gusts