Weather forecasters insisted that they had given adequate warnings about the storm which ripped across the Island with hurricane force winds on Thursday night, but did concede this type of rapidly developing low pressure system is hard to predict by computers, which use atmospheric readings.

Most people who spoke yesterday said they had been taken completely by surprise by the storm, which at its peak on Thursday night had sustained hurricane force winds of 60-75 knots and gusts of 95 knots.

These readings were recorded at Bermuda Harbour Radio in St. George's and at North Rock at midnight on Thursday. Harbour Radio said earlier on Thursday night it recorded sustained winds of 40-50 knots, surging to 55-65 and with gusts of 75 knots.

The readings released yesterday by Bermuda Weather Service were far lower. BWS said it recorded maximum sustained winds of just 58 knots and maximum gusts of 78 knots. Winds of 64 knots and over are classified as a hurricane.

Forecaster Elizabeth Nelson said BWS had issued a gale warning on Wednesday and a storm warning at 2 p.m. on Thursday predicting winds of 48 knots and more. But the storm intensified and BWS recorded sustained maximum winds of 58 knots and maximum gusts of 78 knots. Ms Nelson said one problem was that people don't pay much attention if a storm warning is issued and only really sit and take notice if a tropical storm warning is given.

"I think a lot of the problem is that people don't really heed storm warnings as much as tropical storm warnings, and I don't know why that would be," she said. "Also, you don't have the Emergency Measures Organisation reacting to the storm warnings, but they are reassessing that.

"The intensity of the storm was not forecast very well by the computer models of the atmosphere that we use to predict weather past the next 12 hours.

"The human forecaster is there to give a bit of edge to the model and we can do six to 12 hours that can be better than the models, using satellite pictures and observations around us.

"I issued a storm warning at Forecaster Elizabeth Nelson said they issued a gale warning on Wednesday and a storm warning at 2 p.m. on Thursday for winds of 48 knots and above which we had for several hours, but then we had winds of 50-60 knots."

When asked is the warning was adequate, she said: "Yes, I think so." But visitors and locals said they had not been expecting such ferocious weather and were caught out by the winds.

Visitors Nancy and Patricia Curtis flew flown down from New Brunswick, Canada in the afternoon, and said they had no idea there was any bad weather predicted for the trip, despite repeatedly checking the Internet.

Nancy Curtis said: "We had been checking the weather right up until the flight and there was nothing about a storm. We left Canada and it was sunny and warm, about 24 degrees."

Steve Hollis of Ocean Sails in St. George's said: "This was one of these storms that just built and built and built and no one knew it was coming. It certainly wasn't predicted (by Bermuda Weather Service)."

Larry Osborne, the Argus Group vice president of property and casualty division, said: "It was a surprise storm that caught everyone off guard. Normally we have a pretty close on things related to the weather, but we did not know this was coming." William Madeiros, the senior executive and vice-president of Colonial Insurance, said: "We ourselves keep a close eye on the weather and personally I was a little bit surprised.

"We as a business are chronically aware of severe weather. But to establish a fault at this stage is hard, if it was our part or another. The impression we are getting is that it was a surprise. I was as surprised as the next guy, but the question is `how hard did I watch it?'"