Mediterranean strong depressions

sdanseo · 18-09-2020 12:25am

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

This is starting to look like it could be serious for Greece, especially when you combine the novelty and thus unpreparedness for storms like this, and the ongoing renewed COVID wave Greece is currently grappling with.

Given how often this has happened in the Mediterranean in recent years, I'm starting to wonder if this needs to be considered a regular annual thing for people to prepare for the way the Atlantic Hurricane Season is. I know one can't talk about climate change with only a few years as a reference point, but IIRC the last four years have all featured a medicane-type storm which is very much unprecedented, it's difficult not to consider that this may be something which is here to stay at least as long as the AMO remains in positive territory.

Looks like it's stalling over western Greece for a good 24-48hrs and dump a really serious amount of rain. Anything up to 370mm over 48h.

Danno · 18-09-2020 12:30am

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

The problem is you'd need to break down the average by phase of the AMO, so you'd need, roughly speaking, the average for the periods 1897-1927 and 1965-1995 (the most recent cold phases) to compare with the average for the periods 1928-1964, and 1995-present. That's again assuming the AMO has an impact on Mediterranean temperatures, which is something I'm unsure of but will dig around a bit tomorrow to find out - I suspect there would definitely be a correlation between the two, as the AMO isn't just influenced by ocean currents but by long term atmospheric pressure setups as well, which would most likely be large-scale enough to have at least some influence in the Med.

There may or may not be a link, but regardless - there are still on average 1.57 storms per year which should inform the average Mediterranean coastal resident that these are not rare, but rather occasional.
I posted the above in response to your ponderings if they should consider these a regular annual thing - which is a position they should by default hold.
Just like in Ireland we expect and usually get a few snow days almost every year, these storms to them are akin to snow days for us.

SleetAndSnow · 18-09-2020 4:30pm

https://twitter.com/MetEireann/status/1306978129517436929?s=20

Gaoth Laidir · 19-09-2020 9:30pm

It made landfall yesterday morning on the island of Kefalhnia, with a gust to 111 kph. Rainfall totals of around 50 mm.

The UKMO got the central pressure very wrong in their 06Z analysis, marking it as only 1001 hPa when Kefalhnia airport was reporting 994 hPa.

METAR LGKF 180550Z 31036G50KT 1000 +TSRA SCT005 FEW011CB OVC012 21/20 Q0994=

dsmythy · 27-10-2021 1:22am

I guess it's that season again. The Mediterranean Sea is well above average temperature. Eastern Sicily has suffered catastrophic floods in the last 24 hours from a low pressure system in the region and more is threatening in the coming days.

Gaoth Laidir · 27-10-2021 11:24am

72-hour precipitation totals.

Previsioni Meteo Sicilia SIAS (regione.sicilia.it)

dsmythy · 31-10-2021 10:28am

How the disturbance looked on Thursday in the end.

Rikand · 14-09-2023 12:42pm

Another September "medicane" after devastating Libya with catastrophic rainfall that caused dams to burst and 6000 people dead so far.

https://www.space.com/medicane-daniel-libya-destruction-satellite-photos

Supercell · 15-09-2023 8:07am

You'd have to imagine with a warming world and a shallow mediterranean (easier to heat up) that there is going to be explosive deepening of storms there far more frequently than the recent past. Especially awful for poorer north african countries who are ill equipped to deal with them

InAtFullBack · 16-09-2023 11:40pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121111885#Comment_121111885

I really don't see how the first sentence you posted computes - explosiveness of storms is not caused by temperature per say, it's caused by the differences between temperatures of neighbouring airmasses. We are regularly informed that the arctic and antarctic regions are warming much faster than anywhere else on the planet. Therefore, colder airmasses are much less cold than before and warmer airmasses are slightly warmer.

For example, -31c upper airmasses owing to global warming are now -25c drifting south. Warmer airmasses +22c are now +24c drifting north thanks also to global warming. Instead of a differential of 53c, we now have a differential of 49c between the two and therefore less explosiveness.

There is correlation here in Ireland to back this assertation in the fact that we've been getting less severe wind events in the recent decades.

Mediterranean strong depressions

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