>WILD EUROPE: Storm Brings 70 mph Wind Gusts And Flooding Rains To The UK While Temps Soar To Near 90F (32C) From Germany To Moscow

Written by Mark Vogan on April 29, 2012 in Rest of Europe with 0 Comments

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WILD EUROPE: Storm Brings 70 mph Wind Gusts And Flooding Rains To The UK While Temps Soar To Near 90F (32C) From Germany To Moscow

SEE VIDEO BELOW!

Warm, moisture rich air can be seen flowing all the way from the Cape Verde Isles acting like a giant hose

A fairly unique upper pattern is delivering some wild and fascinating weather across Europe. In the trough drapped over the western continent which extends deep into the sub-tropical east Atlantic, a northward moving storm system is allowing moisture to get picked up as far south as Cape Verde ride up along it’s cold front over Mauritania, NW Mali, Algeria, the Mediteranean, Italy and up into the circulation over the Southern UK.

Troubled waters: The harbour lighthouse at Seaham, County Durham, is engulfed as towering waves explode against the sea wall this morning, driven by gale force winds off the North Sea as a storm sweeps across Britain (Daily Mail)

With a dominant high over Scotland and an even more dominant high over Germany, this effectively backed the northward pushing low into a corner and with nowhere to go, the storm tightened. As it did so, the upper support came up from the south, intensifying the upward motion and both pulled more moisture up from the Cape Verde Isles and produced some downward energy transfer from the upper levels down to the surface. I alluded to in last night’s video & write-up my concern would for some very intense surfaces winds as the northern edge of the centre sees excelleration in wind and an alignment of NE flow at all levels of the atmospheric column which can support downward energy transfer, causing damaging wind gusts of 70+ mph in a narrow corridor on that north edge of the storm centre.

I outlined north Devon and Cornwall, even Somerset as the area to watch for damaging winds, incidentally, the strongest winds occured to north of this area so an excellent call if you don’t mind me saying so.

It’s no coincidence that power was cut to over 5,000 homes in Swansea and Cardiff, South Wales due to strong northeast winds. The howlling northeast winds throughout a large swath of England was created not by the low itself but the steep pressure gradient between the high closeby to the north and the low off the south coast. As stated back yesterday and the previous day, this low didn’t have a particularly deep centre. 994mb isn’t noteworthy and particularly not given we saw a 972mb low cross Southern England just 48 hours previous, however the dynamics were different thanks to the high to the north and east.

Western Trough Enhanced Warmth Further East, Likily Brought Daily, If Not All-Time April Records

While the storm in the west was one wild aspect, the other was the blowtorch blasting an area from Germany eastwards to Russia

While high pressure was already established over eastern Europe and temps were warm and well above normal, the deepening trough to the west, it’s southward extent down into the Azores and Canaries as well as it’s SW/NE axis orientation which set up a perfect southwest flowwhich pumped hot air from way down in the Sahel (south of the Sahara) heat northwards up over the Med and Alps and into Germany, this then extended east through Poland into Russia as well as over Italy, the Balkans and into Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine where all these countries warmed well into the 80s and I have no doubt there were some 90s popped up..

Germany bore the brunt of the heat during Saturday with near 90F (32C) in places. Today it was shifted slightly east into Poland where Warsaw rose to at least 86F (30C). There are likely spots both in Germany and Poland which topped 90 or 32C. Low to mid-80s extended widely across the vast expanse of Russia with at least 83 degrees (28C) seen in Moscow.