Update: stormy weather

Wed 16 February 2022

1 minute read

Photo: AdobeStock

We wrote already about the possibility of a stormy period at the start of this week. This blog elaborates once more on the potentially dangerous upcoming weather situation.

Wednesday till Friday morning

An elongated low-pressure area tracks east over the North Sea today and reaches Denmark and the far south of Scandinavia in the night to Thursday as depicted in figure 1. A sharp trough is located over the middle part of the North Sea. The strongest wind gusts are located along that trough. Wind gusts up to 55-60 knots are possible in that region. Wind gusts are up to 50-55 knots further south over the North Sea and there is barely any wind north of the low-pressure area.

Weerkaart 1Mean Sea level pressure (black lines) and 10 m wind speeds calculated by GFS for Wednesday 19UTC.

Friday and Saturday

A new low-pressure area rapidly forms south-west of Ireland on Thursday and races towards the UK and the North Sea on Friday. The low is located between the UK and Denmark Friday afternoon. A very strong pressure gradient results in a lot of wind on the south and south-west side of the low-pressure area. Wind gusts are possibly up to 65-75 knots. Locally, wind gusts of a few knots higher are even possible. There is still some uncertainty in the exact track of the low-pressure area. Especially around the core of the low, since a small deviation from a previously calculated track can have a large impact on the forecasted wind speeds. The low tracks east over Denmark and the Baltic Sea on Saturday.Weerkaart 2Mean Sea level pressure (black lines) and 10 m wind speeds calculated by GFS for Friday 16UTC.

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