"With hurricane-force winds of 84 mph, gusting to 114 mph, Éowyn was the strongest storm on record for Ireland."

"The same low-pressure system that brought historic snowfall to the U.S. Gulf Coast early this week intensified into an extremely powerful extratropical cyclone in the North Atlantic, designated Storm Éowyn under Europe’s international system for naming such storms. Éowyn barreled into Ireland and the northern United Kingdom on Friday, January 24, bringing heavy wind damage, a destructive storm surge, and widespread power outages.

The ferocious windstorm brought the highest sustained winds and the highest wind gust ever recorded in Ireland. Sustained winds of 135 km/hr (84 mph) gusting to 183 km/hr (114 mph) were reported between 4 and 5 a.m. local time at Mace Head on Ireland’s central west coast. According to the Irish weather service, met.ie, the nation’s previous highest winds were sustained at 81 mph (131 km/hr), gusting to 113 mph (182 km/hr), a record set in Limerick in 1945.

The winds at the Mace Head Atmospheric Research Station were measured at a standard observing height of 10 meters (about 33 feet), on a tower located right at the edge of the ocean. That tower was only installed in 2003, so it is possible that the station would have measured even stronger winds during the 1945 storm."

Jeff Masters and Bob Henson report for Yale Climate Connections January 24, 2025. [2]