St. Jude storm

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Hurricane Christian, in the UK unofficially St Jew 's Day Storm in Sweden Höststormen Simone (, autumn storm Simone '), was a hurricane that caused severe damage in Western and Northern Europe on 27 and 28 October 2013. This affects mainly the coastal regions were northern Germany ( Schleswig-Holstein/Niedersachsen ), Denmark, the Netherlands, southern England and southern Sweden. Also parts of Central Germany have recorded damage.

Name

Like any high - and low-pressure area since 1954 also received this hurricane its name from the Free University of Berlin, where these names are assigned for several years as part of the Action Weather Godfather. These names are now used informally in other countries of Europe, with the exception of the United Kingdom and Scandinavia.

The name used in the United Kingdom St Jew 's Day Storm was not, as originally reported, awarded by an employee of the UK Met Office and the Met Office claimed not to know the author 's name. In fact, the name of the storm of the meteorologist Leon Brown was conceived, who works for the Weather Channel, after the feast of Saint Jude Thaddeus, which takes place on 28 October, the day on which the peak of the storm was expected. The name first became popular on Twitter, before it was taken over by the media in the UK.

Sveriges och meteorologiska hydrologiska institute chose the name Simone, as their name-day is October 28. This is called Höststormen ( autumn storm ).

Storm History

On October 25, formed off the U.S. East Coast, a secondary low on the southern flank of the southeastern Greenland Iceland lows Burkhard. From the Jetstream driven Christian moved rapidly eastward across the North Atlantic and deepened.

The developing deep formed a baroclinic leaf before it is pushed through under the jet stream; this already absorbed the remnant low of former tropical storm Lorenzo in the central North Atlantic. The tropical storm that air supplied to the developing area of ​​low pressure with sufficient energy, increased the jet streak and helped that the low pressure area intensified in an area that was closer to Europe than usual. Thus began a rapid intensification before the storm hit Western Europe.

The storm reached the coasts of Brittany and England on 27 October around 19 clock, and the minimum air pressure had dropped to 990 hPa; gusts of the storm reached wind speeds of over 110 km / h By 22 clock wind gusts of more than 130 km / h were recorded on the Brittany coast. The air pressure dropped to 984 hPa, while the storm hinwegzog in an east - northeasterly direction across the south of the United Kingdom and the coasts of the English Channel.

About Southern England two strong wind fields were observed: one hit before the passage of the storm, the UK's south coast and the second was East Anglia and the South East of England as the storm moved into the North Sea. This second wind field is, according to meteorologists may be a Sting Jet, an area where the wind speeds are amplified by rapidly descending katabatic winds from the upper layers of the storm.

Until October 28, 2013 by 18 clock the strongest wind gust was recorded in Denmark Kegnæs with 193 km / h registered. The highest wind speed on German territory was measured, each with 191 km / h on the islands of Helgoland and Borkum. In France, the strongest gusts were measured 147 km / h in Cap Gris -Nez, 134 km / h in Camaret -sur -Mer, 126 km / h in Boulogne -sur -Mer, with 125 km / h on the Cap de la Hague, 116 km / h in Ouessant, 115 km / h on the Ile de Groix and with 112 km / h at the Pointe du Raz. In places were up to 40 mm of rainfall during the storm.

The storm had a tremendous pressure gradient, so that it far from the south drew warm air to Central Europe: Southwest, before langverschleppten cold front of the lows, ruled temperatures well above 20 ° C.

Effects

By the evening of October 29, 2013 officially at least 14 people died in Europe by the storm killed, six of them in Germany. Four people were killed in the United Kingdom, two in the Netherlands, one in Denmark and one in France.

United Kingdom

130 flights to and from London Heathrow airport were canceled and ferry services between Dover and Calais was interrupted because the English port was closed. The reactor B of the Dungeness nuclear power plant was shut down for safety reasons. The building of the Cabinet Office in Whitehall was damaged by a crane that fell over in the wind.

Germany

In large parts of northern and northwestern Germany, it came to a complete standstill of public transport. In particular, north of a line Dortmund - Hannover - Berlin as well as in most of North Rhine -Westphalia there were strong impairments in bus and rail transport, in Schleswig -Holstein had from the afternoon of October 28 because of massive storm damage are set, the entire train traffic. The Hamburg S-Bahn was quiet except for the tunnel route; the metro and the railway traffic was affected. In addition, the air traffic was temporarily severely impaired.

In the East Frisian tourist and fishing Greetsiel was by the hurricane one of the two twin windmills, which are a symbol of the village, badly damaged.

Wind turbines supplied to Germany on 28 October zwischen 11 und 12 clock clock a maximum output of 24.7 GW into the grid. This meant at that time a new German record that has already been surpassed in early December during the storm depression Xaver again. In the daily average over 20 GW were delivered, with minimum values ​​in the range of 18 GW. The produced a total amount of current that day was around 500 million kWh.

In the North Frisian municipality Reußenköge belonging Sönke -Nissen - enclosed land were registered in the list of monuments of the state Schleswig-Holstein farm buildings severely affected in greater numbers affected. An agricultural property was completely destroyed. Trees were uprooted in many cases also in the adjacent polders and buildings damaged.