Hurricane Maria Kills One In Norway (WTF?!?!?) - AFP

[hatrack]

A weakened Hurricane Maria swept in from the Atlantic and hit northern Europe in the wee hours of Wednesday, leaving one person dead in Norway after heavy rains there triggered a landslide.
The body of a 51-year-old woman was found Wednesday morning in the ruins of her house which had been caught up in the landslide in the western Norwegian town of Bergen after torrential rains, the Norwegian news agency NTB reported.

Several other homes were destroyed and nine people were hospitalized, two with serious injuries. Some 150 millimeters (nearly six inches) of rain fell in the area in just 24 hours, and parts of Norway's second largest city were flooded, according to local authorities.

Maria hit the western shores of Scandinavia with south-southwestern winds blowing at an average speed of between 75 and 90 kilometers (47 to 56 miles) per hour.

"The hurricane didn't touch the American coasts and has therefore maintained a large portion of its energy as it crossed the Atlantic," the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute stated in a public advisory on its website.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/news/hurricane-05zzv.html

[nickinSTL]

1. wow, I'm sure they don't get a lot of hurricane deaths in

Norway.

[tocqueville]

3. it's worse than you think

December 3, 1999. Hurricane like storm over Denmark and neighbouring countries. Killing 7 in Denmark alone. Pressure: 952.4 hPa. Wind speeds above 85mph (38 m/s), gusts up to 115mph. Danish Meteorological Institutepages with graphics (in Danish): With hurricane path. With satellite animation.

December 26, 1999. On the 26th, 27th and 28th, France and Germany were hit by severe storms and rain. Over 100 people were killed, and the storm caused extensive damage to property and trees and the French and German national power grids. The first storm in the series, dubbed "Lothar" by European forecasters, rapidly developed just off of the French coast and swept inland. Each of these systems was associated with an intense jet stream aloft and benefitted from latent heat release through atmosphere-ocean exchange processes. "Lothar" and "Martin", as the second storm was dubbed, were extratropical cyclones and had a hurricane-like shape, with an eye at the center.

December 17, 2004. A storm generating 80 mph winds hit northern France, including Paris, killing 6 people and leaving thousands of homes without power.

January 8, 2005. Northern Europe was hit by a storm that caused a lot of financial damage in Sweden, where the forest industry suffered greatly from damaged trees, as more than 9,800,000 cubic yards of trees were blown down in southern Sweden. About 341,000 homes lost power in Sweden and several thousand of these were out of power for many days and even weeks in some cases, as about 10,000 homes were still without power after three weeks. The death toll in Sweden was seven victims. Wind speed of 78 mph with gusts up to 94mph were recorded in the province of Blekinge in southern Sweden, and higher winds speeds (gusts up to 103 mph) were recorded in Denmark. Danish page with wind speeds and satellite image. The storm was nicknamed Gudrun in Sweden and Norway and Erwin in Germany.

January 11, 2005. On the evening of the 11th and early morning of the 12th, a ferocious gale swept across Northern Ireland and northwestern Scotland. Wind speeds of 124 mph were recorded on North Rona and 105 mph on Barra in the Hebrides. Stormy seas combined with high spring tides and caused flooding in low-lying coastal areas. One fatality in Ireland and six in Scotland, including a family of five who were swept into the sea after fleeing their flooded house on Benbecula. At the peak of the storm 85,000 households in Scotland were without power. On the 13th, all Caledonian MacBrayne ferry services and train services in Scotland were suspended, and many roads closed due to fallen trees. The Forth Bridge was closed for the first time since the 1998 Boxing Day storm, and the Tay (Dundee) and Friarton (Perth) bridges were also closed to all traffic.

[hatrack]

4. I remember the 1999 storms, which were truly devastating

Provincial attitude on my part, I suppose - the assumption that we have the monopoly on cyclonic storms.

[tocqueville]

5. this one was the worst

January 31-February 1, 1953. 'North Sea Flood of 1953'. Considered to be Britain's worst natural disaster of the 20th century, claiming over two thousand lives in the UK and Netherlands. A storm originating over Ireland moved around the Scottish west coast, over Orkney, down the east coast of Scotland and England and across the North Sea to the Netherlands. Sea defences in eastern England and the Netherlands were overwhelmed. The ferry MV Princess Victoria, travelling between Scotland and Northern Ireland, was lost with 153 lives onboard, as was more than a quarter of the Scottish fishing fleet. In the Netherlands, 1,835 people died due to the dikes being flooded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_windstorm

[hatrack]

7. That became known as "De Raamp", correct?

I remember seeing a special on cable on the 1953 flood.

[tocqueville]

9. sounds familiar

[funflower]

10. I think they have them in the, um, Pacific!

Don't seem to get much press coverage there, though.

[tocqueville]

2. "Hurricanes" do touch Europe too you know...

specially at fall, but even during winter. Normally they are not that devastating.

In the United Kingdom and Europe, some severe northeast Atlantic cyclonic depressions are referred to as "hurricanes," even though they rarely originate in the tropics. These European windstorms can generate hurricane-force windspeeds but are not given individual names. However, two powerful extratropical cyclones that ravaged France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in December 1999, "Lothar" and "Martin", were named due to their unexpected power (equivalent to a category 1 or 2 hurricane). In British Shipping Forecasts, winds of force 12 on the Beaufort scale are described as "hurricane force."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricanes

[NNadir]

6. Here's something special from this link.

"History of tropical cyclone naming"

For several hundred years after the arrival of Europeans in the West Indies, hurricanes there were named after the saint's day on which the storm struck.

The modern method of ascribing people's names to storms was introduced by Clement Wragge, an Anglo-Australian meteorologist at the end of the 19th century. As well as feminine names, he also used the names of politicians who had offended him."

I propose that if we run out names this season, we name the late hurricanes Dick, George, Don, and Condelezza.

[tocqueville]

8. Brilliant

add Karl to the list