Rare hurricane strikes Germany!

[Aaron Kennedy]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/01/18/germany.storm.reut/index.html

Well... that's at least what the news media articles say. Of course the real explanation is that it's just a strong mid-latitude cyclone. The U. of Berlin names strong (all?) cyclones much like we do with hurricanes.

Info about the cyclone:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrill (man you can find ANYTHING on there)

Aaron

[Peter Kirk]

They name all highs and lows no matter what the strength.

Highest sustained in my area (10 minute remember) was 81km/h gusting to 124km/h, pretty significant for NW London.

I've just seen yet another one of Mike Hollingshead's famous images in an article claiming to be taken in the Netherlands today and being this system!

[Marko Korosec]

Here are some data... max gusts for today in Germany: http://www.wetteronline.de/cgi-bin/aktframe?TYP=windspitzen&KEY=DL&LANG=de&ART=tabelle&JJ=xxxx&SORT=2&INT=24&x=17&y=10

graphical: http://www.wetteronline.de/cgi-bin/cgiaktgraph?ART=kartealle&INT=06&LANG=de&JJ=2007&MM=01&TT=18&TIME=2000&TYP=windspitzen&KEY=DL&TIME=1169148224

We already discussed this cyclone here: http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=10713

[Andrew Herron]

Anyone got any links to sat imagery?

[John Diel]

http://www.osei.noaa.gov/Events/Current/STMeurope018_MO.jpg

[Marko Korosec]

Here is the latest satellite...you can see well defined surface CF over central Germany...

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/8339/mibild6he0.th.gif (http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mibild6he0.gif)

And some more surface data...

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/2203/dd11436cf5e4261a7802ef6ue6.th.jpg (http://img101.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dd11436cf5e4261a7802ef6ue6.jpg)

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/8190/euraz4.th.gif (http://img101.imageshack.us/my.php?image=euraz4.gif)

EDIT: Here is the current IR sat: http://imkhp2.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de/~muehr/satpicsf/afwa/bmetir01.html

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

Actually Germans can call this a hurricane, because they have a word "Orkan" in their language what means hurricane either. Germans use "Hurrikan" for tropical hurricanes. All Estonian encyclopedias say that Estonian "Orkaan" can be also used for hurricane-force extratropical cyclones. So I guess that the usage of word "Hurricane" varies by country.

At the meantime, I came across to following METAR report from Landsberg, Germany
2007-01-19 03:20 ETSA 190320Z 270182KT 9999 -RA BKN018 10/05 Q1008 WHT
I think that the weather station had just an error though.

I am naming the storms myself for my statistics and I called this Triin. And I will retire that name along with Regiina(also name from me) aka Per what hit us past weekend.

[Stuart Robinson]

Britain suffered a high wind event yesterday – possible the worst event for 17 years, 12 people unfortunately died, Roads and rail blocked due to tree fall, damage to buildings and lorries blown off roads. Power and communications out in many places.

Highest winds reported were 106mph (gust) from an unofficial source (Davis Vantage pro) sited in the middle of the country – well away from the coasts!

99mph was the Max Official Gust - this recorded at the Needles. Other Official Gusts included:-

92mph Dublin
91mph at Lake Vrnwy (High Level 1178ft up)
84mph Crosby