Severe Weather Europe

The WINNER among the 20 entries in Week 23 is: Sandro Puncet 1. place – WINNER: Sandro Puncet – 85 votes “Close call. 24.5.2017. island Lošinj / Croatia.” 2. place: Ricky Weiße‎ – 56 votes “Supercell in Podelwitz near Grimma, Saxony. 30.05.2017” 2. place: Ingo Bertram‎ – 56 votes “June 9th, 2017: Beautiful storm in southern Hesse, Germany.” 3. place: Elisah Vanhee – 44 votes “It’s been a long time I posted something new…But I went to Tornado Alley this year… Yes I did, from May 16 till May 30 with JVHweatherphotography….This is a pano from an incredible end of a supercell east of Roswell, New Mexico…What a view and those colors….Just love this one…May 22, 2017.” 4. place: Paweł

The WINNER among the 55 entries in Week 22 is: Florian Dickmeiss 1. place – WINNER: Florian Dickmeiss – 59 votes “Cologne, Germany 29.5.17” 2. place: Ingo Bertram – 53 votes “May 30th, 2017: Beautiful storm in western Missouri” 3. place: Damian Warmula – 45 votes “Lightning barrage over Ebersberg east of Munich in the night on May 14th 2017” 4. place: Michele Sensi – 44 votes “Verso la Pianura Padana” 5. place: Kamil Zajdel‎ to – 38 votes “Beautiful shelf cloud in Poland in Kujawy during a severe MCS storm⚡ Tuesday, May 30, 2017” 6. place: Leszek Bartczak – 33 votes “Cumulonimbus arcus over Malta Lake Poznań, Poland, May 30, 2017 (14:12 UTC)” 7. place: Florian Sabo – 25

The Subtropical Storm Ernesto became Tropical Storm Ernesto yesterday afternoon over the North Atlantic. As of 3 PM EDT, Ernesto was located midway between far eastern Canada and the Azores, about 650 miles SE of Cape Race, Newfoundland. Heading towards northeast at 18 mph across the open waters of North Atlantic. Ernesto developed a more symmetric field of convection and more defined convective banding near its center, which prompted the National Hurricane Center (NHC) to upgrade the system into a Tropical Storm. Ernesto remained a large, but relatively weak system on Thursday afternoon: the highest sustained winds were up to only 45 mph with winds of 40 mph extended out as far as 160 miles across the southeast quadrant. Ernesto

We take a short look at the weather patterns across the Mediterranean in the autumn that produce severe weather and how high sea surface temperatures may affect them. Mediterranean sea surface temperature over the past week. Very warm! Map: Consorzio LaMMA. Mediterranean sea surface temperature anomaly (and other seas around Europe) over the past week. All are well above the 1979-2000 average, the Mediterranean locally by as much as 4 5 C. Map: Meteociel.fr. There are several weather patterns that generate particularly severe thunderstorms across the Mediterranean, particularly the N-CNTRL part. As summer progresses into autumn increasingly deep troughs enter the Mediterranean region, producing severe weather setups. Major flooding – particularly along the Ligurian coast (NW Italy) and north Adriatic

After a rather active convective period through the first days of this week, we take a look at the pattern evolution through the rest of this week and early next week. A rather stable conditions are developing as ridging pattern strengthens again, near-normal to slightly warmer than average temperatures are expected. No large scale weather systems supportive of severe weather are foreseen. The current pattern reveals a deep trough over N Atlantic with a strenghtening ridge ahead of it towards central Europe. In the wake of a decaying upper low over the Mediterranean. Strong SW jet stream in between is resulting in warm advection towards the NE. The pattern through the weekend days suggests a ridge over west-central Europe should

The annual Perseid meteor shower peaks tonight, so many of us will be out under the skies observing this fine celestial show. Weather permitting, of course. So let us take a look across Europe what the weather will be like for the Perseids. The current weather pattern across Europe reveals a deep trough over NNE Europe with a another trough over WSW Europe, while a shallow ridge dominates east-central Europe and Balkan peninsula. Should be cloudy in some areas (W Europe), but expect gradually clearing skies in the evening over other parts of Europe, after daytime convective activity diminishes. So great chances for many observers across our continent. Tonight, August 12/13 We take a look over the cloud coverage in

The annual Perseid meteor shower peaks this weekend, so many of us will be out under the clear skies observing this fine celestial show. Weather permitting, of course. So let us take a look across Europe, what the weather will be like for the Perseids. The current weather pattern across Europe reveals a flattening strong upper ridge over east-central Europe as a deep trough from western Europe is pushed towards north Europe tonight. This brings a cold front with colder airmass across central Europe, so the weather will be cloudy in some areas, but expect gradually clearing skies in the evening, after daytime convective activity diminishes. Tonight, August 10/11 We take a look over the cloud coverage in the low/mid-level

North Europe will see a partial Solar eclipse on August 11. The eclipse will visible in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and NW Russia. The best place to see the exlipse will be the extreme north of Norway and Svalbard Island. The eclipse happens between 8:30 UTC and 10:00 UTC. The southern limit of eclipse runs across the northernmost part of Scotland, extreme south of Norway, southern Sweden and central Latvia. Iceland will see about 20% maximum eclipse, as will northern Sweden and central Finland. The northernmost part of Norway will see ~30% maximum eclipse. Svalbard will see about 43-44% eclipse. Map of August 11, 2018 partial Solar eclipse by NASA. 0.20 = 20% eclipse, 0.40 = 40% eclipse,

As expected, western and central Europe were hit by severe thunderstorms today. Storms with severe straight line winds, large hail and torrential rainfall, causing flash flooding, were reported in parts of France and Germany. Thunderstorms with severe straight line winds and large hail were reported in the morning and early afternoon in central and northeastern France. Meanwhile, persistent training storms produced major flash flooding in parts of southern and southeastern France. Lightning tracks across western Europe on August 9: note the continuous tracks starting over W France and continuing across central France into BeNeLux and Germany, produced by organized thunderstorms / squall lines. Lots of activity in southern France, where training storms produced persistent torrential rainfall and flooding. Also some

The cyclone associated with the trough and frontal system passing across western and central Europe today will also produce unseasonally strong non-convective winds in BeneLux, northwest Germany and – in particular – in Denmark. Winds gusting up to ~130 km/h are possible. The low will pass across BeNeLux today, crossing into the eastern North Sea and rapidly deepening to a central (MSL) pressure below 1000 mbar by late morning tomorrow. At the time it will likely produce strong winds gusting up to 120-130 km/h along the western coast of Denmark. Peak wind gusts indicated by ARPEGE and ICON-EU models. Maps: Wxcharts.eu

Another focus for today’s convective activity across Europe will be a part of Scandinavia where severe storms with damaging winds and tornadoes are likely this afternoon. While the northeastern Europe is under an extensive strong ridge, a short wave trough with a surface front slides across N Scandinavia on the western edge of the ridge. This allows a corridor of strongly shear environment and forcing for storm development across south-central Finland by mid-afternoon hours. 500mb chart across Europe reveals a strong jet stream rounding the large upper trough over E Atlantic while strong ridge is placed over ENE Europe. The tight pressure gradient between the two brings a strong shear across France, N Germany up across Scandinavia. With all the

Today, Thursday Aug 9th, a dangerous setup is shaping up for E-SE France, E Benelux, W-SW and N Germany into S Denmark. Ahead of an approaching deep trough over the E Atlantic, a negative tilted short-wave trough is pushed across N France, providing large scale forcing/lift for widespread convective activity. Moderately unstable boundary layer will overlap with strong to very strong shear, so strongly organized severe thunderstorms are expected, capable of producing large hail, severe damaging winds, torrential and locally excessive rainfall. In addition, some tornado threat is possible as well, especially across far NE Benelux and N Germany towards the evening hours. While strong convective activity is already ongoing across France where large storm clusters have initiated in the

A damaging debris flow hit the village of Chamoson, Switzerland late afternoon yesterday, August 7. It was caused by locally very intense rainfall, with surface runoff streaming into a channel in Chamoson. Preliminary reports indicate 18 mm of rain fell in only 10 minutes and a total of ~50 mm in one hour. The reported data however, is from a weather station several kilometers away so locally there may have been even more rainfall. Debris flows are a form of water-saturated mass movement, typically caused either by short, intense ranifall. Depending on the amount of bedload suspended in the flow, such events range from flash floods (with relatively little bedload) through hyperconcentrated flows to debris flows.

Mark your calendars for a spectacular celestial fireworks display this weekend! The Perseid meteor shower peaks on Sunday, and with no Moon in the sky this could be the best meteor display in quite some time. The Perseid meteor shower is one of the finest and most reliable annual meteor showers. On their peak night the Perseids make a spectacular fireworks display with up to, and sometimes over 100 meteors per hour. What is a meteor shower? Why does it happen? Meteors are light phenomena that occur when small dust particles, called meteoroids, impact the Earth’s atmosphere at tens of kilometers per second and burn up. These meteoroids are tiny bits and pieces of asteroids and comets. You can see

Very hot weather continues across parts of western and central Europe today as strong warm advection takes place ahead of an approaching trough from the eastern Atlantic. Temperatures will be in the upper 30s, approaching 40 °C in parts of France, up to +38 °C across Benelux and Germany. Southern Iberian peninsula gets the tail end of the ongoing heat wave today, with temperatures again above 40 °C. Heat in this region will be ending this evening as a cold front pushes from the western Europe, bringing an outbreak of severe storms across N France and Benelux and good refreshment with much colder airmass in their wake. France, Benelux and Germany Large parts of France will get well above 35

The overall blocking “heat wave pattern” across Europe is changing this week, as a more progressive pattern develops. A large deepening trough is placed across the E Atlantic while an upper ridge remains over ENE and N Europe. In between, a corridor of strong warm/moisture advection brings unstable airmass ahead of the cold front and favorable conditions for development of severe storms. The first day of active storms will be today, Tuesday Aug 7th, across N France, Benelux and NW Germany. Strong instability and moderate wind shear overlap and an outbreak of severe storms is expected in the late afternoon, evening and night hours. A quite impressive moisture recovery takes place beneath an EML plume from SW Europe across France

Very hot weather continues across much of western and parts of central Europe today. Temperatures will be in the upper 30s, approaching 40 °C in parts of France and Italy. Southwestern Iberian peninsula gets the tail end of the ongoing heat wave today, with temperatures again above 40 °C. France Large parts of France will get well above 30 °C today. Central France, parts of southern and extreme southwestern France will peak up to 36-37 °C. Especially southwestern France will likely push up to 38-39 °C. Italy North and central Italy wil push into upper 30s today. Peak temperatures are likely to reach 36-37 °C. In addition, the airmass in the plains of north Italy will be very humid, with

We have just ended an interesting week with record breaking and extreme heat wave across Iberian peninsula. This coming week will bring additional heat into parts of central and eastern Europe, but also a good refreshement in the second half of the week as a deep trough develops across E Atlantic and pushes a cold front towards east. In addition, a lot of severe weather is expected from France and Benelux on Tuesday across central Europe from Wednesday through Friday. See details below. A new week starts with a deep trough over N Scandinavia which brought a much needed refreshement for the region which was experiencing severe heat wave in the past weeks. Further south, a record-breaking heat wave and

The intense heat wave in the southwestern part of the Iberian peninsula continues. For three days in a row now temperatures have peaked at 46-47 °C. Today will be hot again, with peak temperatures just slightly lower than in the past days. This has been an very intense heat wave for parts of Spain and Portugal. While it did not break the all time European record, temperatures climbed to 46.6 °C on Friday. Yesterday pushed up to at least 46.6 °C, we will be posting an analysis shortly. Today will be another very hot day, however, peak temperatures will likely be about a degree or so lower than the past few days. Expect peak temperatures around 44-45 °C. The hottest

As expected, the heat wave peaked yesterday, Aug 4th, as the warmest and driest airmass with favorable wind conditions were present over SW Iberian peninsula. Several stations peaked into 45-47 °C! Portugal Here are max temperatures for Aug 4th – the highest recorded temperature (per SYNOP stations) was +45.4 °C at the station Evora / C. Coord in central Portugal. Several stations (Evora, Lisbon, …) broke all time local heat records! Below are some additional information on the peak temperatures: +45.4 °C – Evora / C. Coord (Portugal) // STATION RECORD (previous was +44.5 °C on 1.8.2003) +44.9 °C – Beja (Portugal) +44.6 °C – Beja / B. Aerea (Portugal) +44.2 °C – Montijo (Portugal) +44.0 °C – Lisboa /