I lived in Kemptown at the time of the 87 storm. It did feel a bit windy and with no radio the next day, I thought nothing of it so waited for the No 7 bus to take me to the station for a train to London as usual. The bus never arrived so off I trotted to the station by foot. The penny dropped during my walk to the station via the seafront, that it was quite a big storm With lorries blown onto their side and all the trees down by the Old Steine. I remember a crane weather vaning in the wind at some ridiculous speed at the top of North Road and the station was all locked up. Didn’t the financial crash happen that week and traders couldn’t trade with phone lines being down? The worst of it though was the night after the storm with a power cut in The Rock pub,so we could only play pool with torches and hand pumped beer only ( in my lager youth).I know. I was in Worthing at the time, and the curtains got sucked out through the windows. Didn't think much about it, and slept all night, to wake up to devastation.
Anyway, in Cheshire, we get a lot of rain, bit of wind, but never a storm as such.
Edit to add, completely off topic.... at the moment I have Mr and Mrs swan, and no less than 5 cygnets outside my front door. Looks like that f***ing horrible bird flu may have gone away for a bit...