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Severe Storm Xynthia - Click to download animation

While especially the frequent storms caused major disruptions to traffic and affected the daily lives for many European citizens, without timely warnings issued by the various European National Meteorological Services, these effects would most likely have been much worse, although this is equally likely to be of little consolation for the affected population.

The Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) , the German weather service, attributed the severe winter to northern winds in December and eastern winds in January, in between which Atlantic lows brought repeated snowfall. The storms bringing in the snow not only from the Atlantic but also from the east and even the Mediterranean were observed by EUMETSAT’s Meteosat-9 from its geostationary orbit at 0 degrees Longitude. Thanks to Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) made possible by instruments onboard both Metosat-9 and EUMETSAT’s Metop-A polar-orbiting satellite, enough advanced warning could be given to prepare for the winter storms, whose effects on lives and property would otherwise have been worse.

Madeira rain storms - Click to download animation

NWP modelling fed by satellite data in most cases also helped to anticipate the heavy winds, torrential rains and flooding Europe experienced this winter. Wind products produced from data collected by Meteosat-9 warned of the heavy winds of Storm Xynthia on the west coast of France, which could be felt in central Germany on 28 February. The Jason-1 and Jason-2 ocean altimetry satellites measured wind speeds of nearly 20 metres/second and significant wave heights of 4.5-6 metres caused by Xynthia. Meteosat-8’s Rapid Scanning Service followed the progress of the various winter storms, confirming the forecasts made possible by NWP.

While the winter was colder than normal in Europe (as well as Siberia, China and the eastern half of the United States), north-eastern Canada and Greenland experienced a much less severe winter than usual. The Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut (KNMI) , the Dutch weather service, attributed this to a very strong negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation, a pressure pattern that disrupts the usual flow patterns in the northern hemisphere.

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