Three variables are better than one: detection of european winter windstorms causing important damages
In this paper, we present a new approach for detecting potentially damaging European winter windstorms from a multi-variable perspective. European winter windstorms being usually associated with extra-tropical cyclones (ETCs), there is a coupling between the intensity of the surface wind speeds and...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2014-04-01
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| Series: | Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences |
| Online Access: | http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/14/981/2014/nhess-14-981-2014.pdf |
| Summary: | In this paper, we present a new approach for detecting potentially damaging
European winter windstorms from a multi-variable perspective. European winter
windstorms being usually associated with extra-tropical cyclones (ETCs),
there is a coupling between the intensity of the surface wind speeds and
other meso-scale and large-scale features characteristic of ETCs. Here we
focus on the relative vorticity at 850 hPa and the sea level pressure
anomaly, which are also used in ETC detection studies, along with the ratio
of the 10 m wind speed to its 98th percentile. When analysing 10 events
known by the insurance industry to have caused extreme damages, we find that
they share an intense signature in each of the 3 fields. This shows that the
relative vorticity and the mean sea level pressure have a predictive value of
the intensity of the generated windstorms. The 10 major events are not the
most intense in any of the 3 variables considered separately, but we show
that the combination of the 3 variables is an efficient way of extracting
these events from a reanalysis data set. |
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| ISSN: | 1561-8633 1684-9981 |