A long period of extreme heat in Budapest, Hungary ended with the arrival of a cold-front, triggering a violent storm causing a lot of damage in the capital. Ferihegy Airport experienced some truly high winds that made the tower shake… Here is a picture of the met display taken during this “breezy” period.
I think the guys who fly in Northern Scotland would describe that as a gentle Zephyr…I once landed a 757 at Schiphol in a wind speed of 47 kt gusting to lord knows how much more. We never had any official limits for max wind, only cross and tail components, and this was (mostly) within the cross wind limits being only a few degrees off runway 27. What struck me, apart from the VERY slow final at times less than 80 kt ground speed, was how smooth it all was.. Amsterdam is very near the coast and a westerly wind doesn’t pass over much turbulence-inducing land before it gets there, so I recommend it to anyone wanting to boost their score without too much stress. A propos stress, it always seems to me that many pilots try much too hard in turbulence to keep things absolutely right. I always reckoned that what went up (speed, bank, etc) would come down again very soon after, and it was better to just sit there pretending to be in control, than fight and prove that one wasn’t.