An observational study of the 7 September 2005 Barcelona tornado outbreak

Bech, Joan; Pascual, Ramón; Rigo, Tomeu; Pineda, Nicolau; López, José Manuel; Arús, Joan; Gayà, Miquel

doi:10.5194/nhess-7-129-2007

Cited by 64 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(41 reference statements)

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“…Thus, the values of K and TT indexes are comparable to the values during the VERTIKATOR campaign (Dotzek and Friedrich, 2008); while the value of CAPE is significantly lower due to the altitude at which convection starts and the low height of the thermal inversion. All thermodynamic indexes are also lower than those found in other severe weather events in Catalonia (Bech et al, 2007;Pineda et al, 2009).…”

Section: Thermodynamic Conditions Of the Environmentcontrasting

confidence: 61%

“…Although there is a lot of literature on winds of convective source in the U.S., in Europe there are few studies, most of them focused on winds of convective source embedded in large structures such as straights or cyclones (Lopez, 2007;Pistotnik et al, 2011;Hamid, 2012). VERTIKATOR (Dotzek and Friedrich, 2008) has been the biggest campaign to study winds of convective source in Europe and it compared, through field and radar studies, several cases of downbursts which occurred during the summer of 2002.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Strong winds of convective source in Barcelona on 12 June 2012

González¹

2013

Tethys

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During the afternoon of 12 June 2012 a meteorological phenomenon, characterized by a sudden increase in wind speed and a sharp change in its direction, occurred in the city of Barcelona and surrounding areas. The strong gusts of wind that blew on the Barcelona coastline raised a significant amount of sand from the beaches in the city, which caused a significant reduction in visibility on the coastline, like a small sandstorm. The operational disruption of BarcelonaEl Prat Airport, located a few kilometers southwest of it, was also noteworthy, and led to the abortion of several landings. As indicated, moderate or strong winds affected other regions both north and south of the city of Barcelona, although generally with less intensity. This study has carried out a characterization of the phenomenon and has made a hypothesis about the gust front of convective source, associated to the showers and thunderstorms observed north of the city, as the main cause of the phenomenon. For this purpose, remote sensing data and surface automatic observation have been specifically analyzed. As for the radar data used, there is a novel use of some products such as the Doppler speed spectrum and the wind shear. The early detection of the phenomenon made it possible to notify the airport about the arrival of the gust front in advance, which helped in the track configuration changes that were made. It is, therefore, a good example of nowcasting with immediate practical application.

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Section: Thermodynamic Conditions Of the Environmentcontrasting

confidence: 61%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strong winds of convective source in Barcelona on 12 June 2012

González¹

2013

Tethys

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“…In this region, these events are generally produced in late summer and autumn (Llasat, 2001;Jansá et al, 2001;Martín et al, 2001Martín et al, , 2005Barnolas and Llasat, 2007;Bech et al, 2007b). These episodes of elevated rain rates, where precipitation is highly efficient, are generally brief and locally focused, and may present high lightning flash rates and severe weather phenomena (Doswell et al, 1996;Pascual, 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Their transmitters employ travelling wave tube (TWT) and have a peak power of 8 kW, allowing improved sensitivity using pulse compression (O'Hora and . The beamwidth of the radar antennas is approximately 1 degree; more details of the network are available in Bech et al (2004).…”

Section: Radar Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of warm season thunderstorms using an object-oriented tracking method based on radar and total lightning data

Rigo

Pineda

Bech

2010

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract.Monitoring thunderstorms activity is an essential part of operational weather surveillance given their potential hazards, including lightning, hail, heavy rainfall, strong winds or even tornadoes. This study has two main objectives: firstly, the description of a methodology, based on radar and total lightning data to characterise thunderstorms in real-time; secondly, the application of this methodology to 66 thunderstorms that affected Catalonia (NE Spain) in the summer of 2006. An object-oriented tracking procedure is employed, where different observation data types generate four different types of objects (radar 1-km CAPPI reflectivity composites, radar reflectivity volumetric data, cloud-toground lightning data and intra-cloud lightning data). In the framework proposed, these objects are the building blocks of a higher level object, the thunderstorm.The methodology is demonstrated with a dataset of thunderstorms whose main characteristics, along the complete life cycle of the convective structures (development, maturity and dissipation), are described statistically. The development and dissipation stages present similar durations in most cases examined. On the contrary, the duration of the maturity phase is much more variable and related to the thunderstorm intensity, defined here in terms of lightning flash rate. Most of the activity of IC and CG flashes is registered in the maturity stage. In the development stage little CG flashes are observed (2% to 5%), while for the dissipation phase is possible to observe a few more CG flashes (10% to 15%). Additionally, a selection of thunderstorms is used to examine general life cycle patterns, obtained from the analysis of normalized (with respect to thunderstorm total duration and maximum value Correspondence to: T. Rigo (tomeur@meteo.cat) of variables considered) thunderstorm parameters. Among other findings, the study indicates that the normalized duration of the three stages of thunderstorm life cycle is similar in most thunderstorms, with the longest duration corresponding to the maturity stage (approximately 80% of the total time).

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“…It can sometimes result even in tornados [Bech et al, 2007]. In the Adriatic basin, severe weather research has concentrated more on the coastal and inland areas, due to damages caused by the storms [e.g., Manzato, 2007].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Summer breakout of trapped bottom dense water from the northern Adriatic

Vilibić¹,

Paklar²,

Žagar³

et al. 2008

J. Geophys. Res.

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[1] The paper deals with an intriguing dense-water breakout episode in mid-August 2004 which has been observed in the bottom layers of the oil rig located in the middle of the northern Adriatic. Various data (temperature series and vertical T-S profiles, currents, meteorological measurements, and satellite images) have been analyzed in order to understand conditions which preceded, were active, and followed the breakout episode. A stationary bottom pool of dense water, generated during the previous winter, has been suspected to be a source of the dense water observed during the breakout, with a permanent position established by a stationary northern Adriatic cyclonic-anticyclonic gyre system. The breakout lasted for 3 days, advecting the bottom waters more than 2°C colder than residing waters at the oil rig site. The main result of modeling experiments concerns the generative force for the observed breakout which was found to be a mesoscale storm that occurred over the open north Adriatic on 8 August 2004. The storm has been reproduced by the Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS 1 ) atmospheric model which was then used to force the Princeton Ocean Model (POM) at the surface. Results of simulations reveal the capability of the storm to break the thermohaline fronts through the wind-induced baroclinic transport and downwelling at the exposed shorelines. This is the first study in the Adriatic which evaluates the impact of mesoscale summer storm to the sea, driving bottom layer circulation through the convergence/divergence dynamics in addition to the direct impact on the sea surface through the wind stress forcing.

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An observational study of the 7 September 2005 Barcelona tornado outbreak

Cited by 64 publications

References 35 publications

Strong winds of convective source in Barcelona on 12 June 2012

Strong winds of convective source in Barcelona on 12 June 2012

Analysis of warm season thunderstorms using an object-oriented tracking method based on radar and total lightning data

Summer breakout of trapped bottom dense water from the northern Adriatic

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