What you have to remember here is that since the farse of 87 the british media and met office have always over-played any weather situation that is out of the norm, beit fog, snow, wind or rain.
The way they get away with this is that they tell joe public to batten down the hatches as on this occasion damaging winds will hit the U.K. When these damaging gusts hit and basically rattle a few crisp packets on the floor everydoby gives a big sigh of relief that nobody gets hurt and travel caos is kept to a minimum.
meanwhile anybody in the Industry has already looked at the tafs and realised how much of a over ramp this is...for example......
EGCC 091018Z 091818 21010KT 9999 FEW025 BECMG 2124 18020G30KT
BECMG 0003 15032G45KT TEMPO 0207 4000 RA BKN010 BECMG 0709
20012KT BECMG 1113 12015G25KT TEMPO 1118 3000 +SHRA BKN012CB
BECMG 1417 30015G25KT=
so gusting 45 kts for a 7 ish hour period......aint that bad...but saying that, it is across the runway and with rain forecast...might be interesting with the effect of olympic house at EGCC......but still nowhere near as bad as the hurricane like winds that the BBC are saying will relocate me from Manchester to Hull overnight !!!