Mediterranean tropical cyclone

Medicane is a portmanteau word for a tropical storm -like storm in the Mediterranean. The term is from the English terms " mediterranean " and "Hurricane" together, and were formed in connection with the increase of severe storms and especially rainy weather events in the Mediterranean. The result is the term in the 1980s, after over the Mediterranean spiral cloud structures with cloud-free zones in the center ( " eye") were detected on satellite images. These occur mainly in autumn tropospheric low pressure areas have both extratropical and tropical characteristics.

According to the German Weather Service Medicanes arise especially in the fall, by cold air flowing from temperate latitudes towards the equator and in the higher layers of the atmosphere a so-called " Cut-off low " is formed ( " extratropical process "). In the still warm water temperatures of the Mediterranean condenses the moisture through evaporation sea level air mass and forms the clouds swirl in the wake of deep convection caused by the height. The eye is formed similar to the tropics by the downward movement of clouds in the resolution thereby heated deep center. However, in the fluidized rarely wind speeds of a "real " be achieved hurricanes, but usually only a tropical storm 63-118 km / h Occasionally, similar low-pressure areas form in the subtropical North Atlantic in the area of ​​Bermuda, Azores and Canary Islands.