Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
24 June 1588
27 June 1588
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29 June 1588
2 July 1588
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Pressure pattern over northern Europe during the Spanish Armada-attempted invasion of Britain, 24 June-2 July 1588 (Lamb, ©1982; with
permission from Methuen, London).
Fig. 3.14
wide area between the coast of France and England.
Only 18 people were killed, but the storm virtually
destroyed all large trees growing in the south of
England. The French Meteorology Department had
issued a very strong wind warning two days in advance.
The same information was available to the British
Meteorological Office, but went unheeded until the
storm actually hit the English coastline. The storm was
reported as the worst to hit England, breaking pressure
and wind records, and was followed by similar storms in
January-February 1990.
Two recent windstorms, on 26-27 December 1999,
rank as intense as any medieval storm. Both storms
were given names -
Lothar
, which crossed northern
France, southern Germany and Switzerland on
26 December, and
Martin
, which crossed central and
southern France, northern Spain and northern Italy a
day later. Each developed in front of a rapidly moving
mobile polar high and developed wind speeds of
180 km hr
-1
and 160 km hr
-1
, respectively. The storms
caused 80 deaths and damaged 60 per cent of
the roofs in Paris.
Lothar
and
Martin
blew over 120
and 80 electricity pylons, respectively. More than
water. In the Netherlands, dykes were breached in
over 100 places, flooding 1 600 000 hectares or one-
sixth of the country. In this country, 2000 lives were
lost and 250 000 head of livestock perished. The storm
was estimated to have had a recurrence interval
of 1:500 years, but does not rank as severe as some of
those that occurred in the Middle Ages. It did become
a benchmark for modern engineering design in the
Netherlands and Britain and gave rise to renewed
interest in coastal engineering in these countries.
The North Sea region still has the potential to spawn
some of the most intense storms ever witnessed. The
last years of the twentieth century have seen an increase
in these intense mid-latitude storms, with some of the
lessons of past events ignored. For example, on the
night of 15 October 1987, very warm, humid air from
the west of Africa clashed with cold Arctic air off the
coast of France, triggering the formation of a very
intense low-pressure cell off the Bay of Biscay. The
storm, which swept up the English Channel and over
the south of England, eventually developed a central
pressure of 958 hPa, the lowest ever recorded in
England. Wind gusts of 170-215 km hr
-1
affected a
