John Pordag, from Stoke Holy Cross, keenly studies the weather and has a barograph at his home which measures pressure.

He keeps the more important measurements he records and has kept his results from the week starting Monday, October 12 1987 for posterity.

On the day of the storm Mr Pordag was away working in Eastbourne, on the south coast, but his barograph was still spinning on its drum recording the dramatic drop in pressure of when the storm reached his south Norfolk home.

His results show that pressure dropped to 28-and-a-half inches just before 8am on the day of the storm, which Mr Pordag says was a 'very low' measurement.

He recalled: 'I was away at a trade conference in Eastbourne and when the hurricane struck it was like a steam train going past all the time outside the hotel we were staying in.

'We couldn't find any road out of Sussex at all, the damage caused was just unbelievable.'

Pressure is a vital tool for predicting and analysing weather patterns.

This is because whenever cold dry air moves away from the earth's north and south poles, it eventually encounters warm wet air moving away from the equator.

This warm wet air is forced up and over the cold air and when the warm air is forced up, it causes surface air pressure to drop.

Cold air then rushes in to fill the area of lower air pressure, which causes more warm air to be displaced upward, and more cold air moves in, forcing more warm air upward, and a cycle starts to develop.

As the earth rotates from west to east, dragging the atmosphere with it, the low-pressure area starts to rotate, and the moving air creates wind.

Mr Pordag's barograph then recorded the pressure starting to return to normal by 10am and moving back above 29ins by midday and back towards a more regular reading of close to 30ins the following day.