Weatherwatch: storm waves that can roll great slabs of rock

Boulders the size of houses and weighing 100 tonnes or more had been lifted up and bulldozed along cliff tops

Winter storms battering the British Isles are more powerful than often assumed. The stormy winter of 2013-14 along the west coast of Ireland produced waves so powerful they tore great slabs of rock out of coastlines and shoved them inland. Among those boulders was a 620-tonne colossus, equivalent to more than three blue whales, which was shoved several feet inshore, setting a new world record for the largest boulder ever known to have been moved by storm waves.