Blog - Week 10
Poland - Extreme Weather (Tornadoes)
What are tornadoes and what are their hazards?
Tornadoes are very powerful storms that are typically created from even stronger thunderstorms. This extreme weather causes high winds and mass destruction from throwing to maneuvering items in the air. Danger signs associated with tornadoes often are/not limited to, dark sky's with greenish looking clouds, hail being large in size, funnel clouds, a cloud of debris, and roaring noise. Unfortunately, tornadoes also cause a multitude of environmental hazards such as toxic pollutants, asbestos, and hazardous ground water and soil.
Tornadoes in Poland?
In Poland, there are about 8-14 (including 2-3 waterspouts) with 2 stronger tornadoes each year. One violent tornado occurs in about every 12-19 years. The term waterspouts refers to the type of tornado that forms over water or moves from land to water. In an article with postings from Dr. Mateusz Taszarek "storm hunter", he writes about how tornadoes have been reviewed and recorded for 200 years in Poland. He predicts that storms will happen more frequently as climate change continues; the shorter summers and shorter winters and the rising temperatures in each season has been proven to increase the levels of evaporation in the atmosphere. Thus, curating a more suitable environment for tornadoes to form. Luckily, Poland's greatest mitigation against tornados has been their infrastructure. They have built sturdier buildings to ward off against intense damages from this extreme weather event. Of course tornados can often uplift buildings but for the rare and minor tornados occurring in Poland this mitigation as proven sufficient. Another mitigation used for active tornado watch are just warnings provided based on what is being observed of already active tornadoes.
‘Extreme event’: warm January weather breaks records across Europe
ReplyDeleteAt least eight countries experience record high temperatures of ‘almost unheard of’ heat, say meteorologists
Damien Gayle
@damiengayle
Mon 2 Jan 2023 12.48 EST
Weather records have been falling across Europe at a disconcerting rate in the last few days, say meteorologists.
The warmest January day ever was recorded in at least eight European countries including Poland, Denmark, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia, according to data collated by Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist who tracks extreme temperatures.
In Korbielów, Poland, the mercury hit 19C (66F) – a temperature the Silesian village is more used to in May, and 18C above the 1C annual average for January. In Javorník in the Czech Republic it was 19.6C, compared with an average of 3C for this time of year.
Temperatures in Vysokaje, Belarus, would normally hover around zero at this time of year. On Sunday they reached 16.4C, beating the country’s previous record January high by 4.5C.
Elsewhere on the continent, local records were broken at thousands of individual measuring stations, with nearly 950 toppled in Germany alone from 31 December to 2 January, Herrera said.
Northern Spain and the south of France basked in beach weather, with 24.9C in Bilbao, its hottest ever January day, and records broken at stations in Cantabria, Asturias and the Basque region. Only Norway, Britain, Ireland, Italy and the south-east Mediterranean posted no records.
“We can regard this as the most extreme event in European history,” Herrera said. “Take the case of July 2022 UK extreme heatwave and spread this sigma (magnitude) in a much huger area, encompassing about 15 countries.
“We can arguably say this is the first time an extreme weather event in Europe (in terms of extreme heat) is comparable to the most extreme in North America.”
Alex Burkill, a senior meteorologist at the Met Office, agreed it was an extreme weather event. “It’s been extreme heat across a huge area, which is almost, to be honest, unheard of,” he said.
Burkill said a warm air mass that developed off the west coast of Africa had travelled north-east across Europe from Portugal and Spain, pulled in by high pressure over the Mediterranean.
“It has been widespread, Denmark, Czech Republic, as well as pretty much the whole of Germany have seen temperatures for January exceeding records,” Burkill said.
“It’s also worth noting, we had some exceptionally warm weather in the south of England. New Year’s Eve, I think about seven sites in southern England recorded their warmest ever New Year’s Eve on record.”
The meteorologist Scott Duncan said the temperatures across Europe were staggering. “We had a very warm new year last year but this blows that out of the water,” he said. “We observed longstanding records broken by large margins across several countries.”
Causes were difficult to ascertain, said Duncan, with La Niña and anomalous warmth in sea surfaces playing a role. “None of the above here is new though, so what took extreme to record-smashing status? Our warming atmosphere and oceans are ultimately making records easier to break.”
Prof Bill McGuire, who has written about the consequences of climate breakdown, said the high temperatures were a portent of worse to come.
“The most worrying thing about this is that – such is the speed of global heating – it simply isn’t a surprise any longer,” he said. “It is a small glimpse of a future that will see winter reduced to a couple of months of dreary, damp, and mild weather, with little in the way of frost, ice or snow.”
Source:"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/02/extreme-event-warm-january-weather-breaks-records-europe"
Hi Maggie,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed learning about the history and potential impact of tornadoes in Poland. I was interested in how climate change is affecting the frequency and intensity of tornadoes. I am glad to hear that Poland has taken steps to mitigate the damage caused by tornadoes, such as building sturdier buildings and providing early warnings of tornado activity.