Cyclone Gudrun
The hurricane Gudrun, Erwin, ( naming Gudrun by the Norwegian Norske Institutt Meteorologisk, the DWD Erwin named) took over the weekend of 8 and 9 January 2005, Ireland and parts of Britain, Denmark, Norway and Sweden and had in his route through Sweden a wind speed of about 40 m / s (145 km / h). Furthermore, coastal cities in Finland, Russia and Estonia were threatened by high water levels. The storm claimed a total of 17 deaths and was the heaviest storm over northern Europe for 15 years.
Sweden
Gudrun taught mainly in the south of Sweden in the provinces of Halland and Småland great damage to where he was the most serious storm for 35 years. One night, about 160,000 hectares of forest were also victims of the hurricane, which corresponds to the area of about 300,000 football fields. The Ministry of Agriculture estimated the storm felled timber volume to 75 million cubic meters, equivalent to a normal annual timber harvest from all over Sweden, or three to four years harvesting the affected region. The damage was estimated at the equivalent of 2.25 billion euros and is clearly visible in the affected areas.
The reconstruction of infrastructure, progress was slow. On the night of 9 January 2005 were 341,000 households without power; four days after the storm even 100,000; after two weeks still 25,000. The excessive number of air lines has been strongly criticized as a result, particularly as they had wide parts of the country for weeks without telecommunications.
In the dangerous cleanup in devastated forests of Sweden, which include forest workers and machines were requested from all over Europe, even more people lost their lives. Gudrun surpassed in forestry the storms of 1969 of harmful effect, in which 37 million cubic meters had fallen. The windfall led to enormous, the then world's largest timber reserves in southern Sweden. From 14 to 15 January 2007, another winter storm, tossed by another approximately 12 million cubic meters.
Norway
Also in Southern Norway from Østfold to Nordland, but that was much less affected, Gudrun was one of the most serious consequences of natural disasters of the last two decades.