Batten down the hatches! The wind storm is here.

It's quite bad where I live, I had to go and secure the shutters again, which were banging against the walls and scaring the sh1t out of me.

Just as bad here in Gloucestershire, been rescuing various garden chairs et al after a very bracing walk with my dog. been hoping all week that it will blow down some of the leylandii I have been meaning to tackle, no such luck

When you can hear the wind blowing, its time to hold on to something.

Are you sure it's not fireworks?

Sorry....

On the plus side, tomorrow's 12th night and the wind storm has saved you the trouble of taking down the tree yourself.

I'm sitting at the top of a high-rise building and the wind up here is very strong and loud!

You better head inside then.

I must say that I love the sound the wind makes when you are surrounded by trees, but it's getting a bit scary. I don't know about a high-rise building, but it sounds scarier...

We have some metal siding on our terrace wall, it's got some hollow bit beneath and the wind blowing under / against / whatever makes it sound like thunder. Hopefully the wind doesn't rip it away.

Our poor Bonny-cat comes out for a cuddle every now and again but otherwise has been hiding under the bed. (The fireworks didn't phase her at all, this has her freaked though.)

Time to "forget" the fireworks outside me think....

Well... Village Idiot by name...

General question: blinds up or down during storms?

Mine are down. I'd rather have a broken blind than a broken window in this weather.

Mine are up. Unless it starts to hail or the wind starts blowing stuff around.

The ones on the back side of our place are "loose" blinds, I put them up when the wind started pulling at them, figuring that the glass is less likely to take damage from wind than the blinds.

Hail just started though, so the bedroom window blinds (more solid sort) are about to go down to help protect the glass since the windows are that slanted attic roof style.

Ok I didn't bother fussing about this after the last announcement of Sturm!!! But we have Thunder, lightning, wind and hard rain. I wish I had tide down the darn pots now

Edit...Now snow and hail.......power cuts....

Unless it really is the storm of the century out there, you should actually put blinds up in a hailstorm. They're far more easily damaged than a window AND can be more expensive to replace.

Plus you get to look out the window.

Generally speaking you need two things to break a window - golf ball sized hail and really driving wind, strong enough to batter it sideways into the glass. Usually small hailstones are the ones bouncing all around and putting all those lovely dents in your blinds if they're lowered, bigger hailstones in the same storm are heavier so tend to fall straight down. Bad for car roofs, good for windows.

Oops, I had no idea, bang goes my theory. Thanks for that.

Good advice.

If I recall correctly, I believe in our case, the windows are insured for breakages but the shutters aren't.

Anyone out on the roads tonight, please be extra careful. Wishing you all a safe journey home.

Yes, its pretty bad. 3 inches of snow has fallen in 30 mins!!!