Atmosphere Journal Entry
Atmosphere Journal Entry
Violent Storm Hammers Europe (March 2, 2010)
Satellite view of huge extratropical storm stretching across Western Europe. NASA.
A violent winter storm called Xynthia blasted Western Europe with hurricane-force winds and huge sea swells. The extratropical cyclone, or one forming outside of the tropics, battered the continent from Portugal to the Netherlands. The storm is the most powerful to strike Europe in over a decade. Hundreds of thousands of people lost electrical power on the continent as ferocious winds downed trees and power lines. Plane and train service were suspended in many areas.
Xynthia was blamed for 68 deaths. More than two-thirds of the deaths were in France, where fierce winds of 125 mph (210 km/h) pounded Paris and big waves swamped the coast. Hundreds of people were rescued from rooftops as waters raged over flooded streets.
Meteorologists say the storm's destructive force was the result of a collision of two large air masses. A cold, dry mass plunging southward in the North Atlantic slammed into a warm, humid mass from the tropics fueled by warmer than normal ocean water in the eastern Atlantic. If the huge pool of warm water is still there in the summer, it could be a very busy Atlantic hurricane season.
