Tornadoes and waterspouts in Catalonia (1950–2009)

Gayà, Miquel; Llasat, M. C.; Arús, Joan

doi:10.5194/nhess-11-1875-2011

Cited by 22 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The stations belong to the SMC (Barcelona), Météo France (Nîmes), and the Spanish Meteorological Agency, AEMET (in the case of the other three). As can be seen in Table , the stations at Barcelona and Palma are used to describe almost all of the WAT, EF0, and EF1+ soundings (145 of 154) because of their position with respect to the event locations and the low‐level predominant wind flow in these events; tornadoes and waterspouts in Catalonia are generally formed in SE to SW low‐level advections (Gayà et al, ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Sounding‐derived parameters associated with tornadic storms in Catalonia

Rodríguez

Bech

2017

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…In the Iberian Peninsula (southwest Europe, Figure ), Catalonia, NE Spain, is the region where tornadoes and waterspouts are most frequent (Gayà et al, ; Gayà, ; Riesco Martín et al, ). Antonescu et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sounding‐derived parameters associated with tornadic storms in Catalonia

Rodríguez

Bech

2017

Intl Journal of Climatology

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“…Tornadoes occur in many parts of the world (Fujita, 1973): Several publications during the last several decades have presented historical records concerning tornadic activity (e.g. Meaden, 1976;Peterson, 1982Peterson, , 1992Peterson, , 1995Peterson, , 1998Grazulis, 1993;Tarand, 1995;Tooming and Peterson, 1995;Reynolds, 1999aReynolds, , 1999bTyrrel, 2000;Marcinoniene, 2003;Setvák et al, 2003;Nastos and Matsangouras, 2010;Gayà et al, 2011;Brázdil et al, 2012;Rauhala et al, 2012). In addition to these historical publications, several researchers have presented or analysed tornado occurrences and climatology for many European countries (Dessens, 1984;Dessens and Snow, 1987;Paul, 1999;Dotzek, 2000Dotzek, , 2003Gayà et al, 2000;Holzer, 2000;Bertato et al, 2003;Sioutas, 2003Sioutas, , 2011Gianfreda et al, 2005;Giaiotti et al, 2007;Keul et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A climatology of tornadic activity over Greece based on historical records

et al. 2013

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In this study, the climatology of tornadoes, waterspouts and funnel clouds over Greece is presented for the period 1709-2012. The climatology consists of two datasets. An historical dataset is based on newspaper archives, historical archives, published tornado literature, administrative records and reports of Hellenic National Meteorological Service (HNMS). A recent dataset (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012) is based on newspaper articles, eyewitness reports to the media, HNMS's reports and an open-ended online tornado report database which has been developed and maintained by the Laboratory of Climatology & Atmospheric Environment of the University of Athens. Altogether, 612 Greek tornadic events compose the climatology: 171 tornadoes, 374 waterspouts and 67 funnel clouds. Tornadic events during the past 13 years (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012) have occurred all over the Greek territory and there is frequent tornadic occurrence over north Crete and Corfu Island. Tornadoes are more frequent to occur over NW Peloponnesus followed by south parts of Corfu Island. However, waterspouts are more frequent over north Crete followed by Corfu Island. Tornadic monthly variability depicts a maximum during October, followed by September and November. October is the month with the highest tornado frequency, followed by November and July. The highest waterspout frequency month is September followed by October and December. Tornadoes most commonly develop during the warm time of the day, as more than 75% of all cases occur during 08:00-15:00 hours UTC with a maximum at 12:00 hours UTC. Waterspout frequency of occurrence has two maxima during the day, the first early in the morning (07:00-09:00 hours UTC) and the second after the noon time period (14:00-15:00 hours UTC). The dominant (27.7% of total cases) intensity of tornadoes in Greece is T4 based on the T-scale during the 300-year period (1709-2012); there have been at least 114 injured and 29 deaths.

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“…Climatological studies have described the spatiotemporal distribution of tornadoes over the Mediterranean Sea throughout recent decades (Dessens, 1984;Dessens and Snow, 1987;Paul, 1999Paul, , 2000Giaiotti et al, 2007;Gayà et al, 2011;Gianfreda et al, 2005). In addition to the climatological research, several publications have presented or analyzed case studies of important tornado and waterspout events around Greece, revealing that tornadoes are neither a rare nor unknown phenomenon in Greece Matsangouras et al, , 2011bMatsangouras et al, , 2012Matsangouras et al, , 2014Matsangouras, 2010, 2012;Sioutas, 2011).…”

Section: T Matsangouras Et Al: Effect Of Topography On Tornadogementioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical modeling and analysis of the effect of complex Greek topography on tornadogenesis

Matsangouras

Pytharoulis

2014

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Tornadoes have been reported in Greece over recent decades in specific sub-geographical areas and have been associated with strong synoptic forcing. While it has been established that meteorological conditions over Greece are affected at various scales by the significant variability of topography, the Ionian Sea to the west and the Aegean Sea to the east, there is still uncertainty regarding topography's importance on tornadic generation and development.The aim of this study is to investigate the role of topography in significant tornadogenesis events that were triggered under strong synoptic scale forcing over Greece. Three tornado events that occurred over the last years in Thebes (Boeotia, 17 November 2007), Vrastema (Chalkidiki, 12 February 2010) and Vlychos (Lefkada, 20 September 2011) were selected for numerical experiments. These events were associated with synoptic scale forcing, while their intensities were T4-T5 (on the TORRO scale), causing significant damage. The simulations were performed using the non-hydrostatic weather research and forecasting model (WRF), initialized by European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) gridded analyses, with telescoping nested grids that allow for the representation of atmospheric circulations ranging from the synoptic scale down to the mesoscale. In the experiments, the topography of the inner grid was modified by: (a) 0 % (actual topography) and (b) −100 % (without topography), making an effort to determine whether the occurrence of tornadoes -mainly identified by various severe weather instability indices -could be indicated by modifying topography. The principal instability variables employed consisted of the bulk Richardson number (BRN) shear, the energy helicity index (EHI), the storm-relative environmental helicity (SRH), and the maximum convective available potential energy (MCAPE, for parcels with maximum θ e ). Additionally, a model verification was conducted for every sensitivity experiment accompanied by analysis of the absolute vorticity budget.Numerical simulations revealed that the complex topography constituted an important factor during the

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Tornadoes and waterspouts in Catalonia (1950–2009)

Cited by 22 publications

References 33 publications

Sounding‐derived parameters associated with tornadic storms in Catalonia

Sounding‐derived parameters associated with tornadic storms in Catalonia

A climatology of tornadic activity over Greece based on historical records

Numerical modeling and analysis of the effect of complex Greek topography on tornadogenesis

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