Waterspouts in the Eastern Adriatic from 2001 to 2013

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Sounding‐derived parameters associated with tornadic storms in Catalonia

Rodríguez

Bech

2017

“…In contrast, the density of WS, of 0.92 events per 100 km of coastline, is lower than in other Mediterranean countries, for example, 3.8 in Catalonia (Rodríguez and Bech, ), 3.0 in Croatia (Renko et al, ), and 2.1 in Greece (Matsangouras et al, ). Again, the value changes a lot depending on the region (it is close to 3 in Liguria, Lazio, and Molise; see Figure ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

An updated “climatology” of tornadoes and waterspouts in Italy

Miglietta

Matsangouras

2018

Ten years of tornadoes (TR) and waterspouts (WS) in Italy are analysed in terms of geographical, seasonal, monthly, diurnal, and rating distribution. Starting from the European severe weather database, a comprehensive data set is developed for the period 2007–2016, which includes 707 WS and 371 TR. The category of WS includes many weak events but also some intense vortices, able to produce significant damages as they make landfall. WS develop mainly near the Italian coasts exposed to westerly flows (Tyrrhenian and Apulia region Ionian coast); 25% of them makes landfall and becomes TR. The majority of WS develops in autumn (43%), followed by summer (33%). The average density is 0.9 events per 100 km of coastline per year, although there is a strong subregional variation, with peaks of around 5 in some spots along the Tyrrhenian coast. TR originate from WS in about half of cases; the average density of TR is 1.23 events per 104 km2 per year, which is comparable with other Mediterranean regions. The occurrence of TR is more frequent in summer, followed by autumn; however, limiting the analysis to TR originated inland, the number of events is maximum in summer and late spring. The latter result suggests a distinction of “continental” cases, mainly affecting northern Italy in late spring and summer, and “maritime” cases, which affect mainly the peninsular regions in late summer and autumn. The highest density of TR was reported along the coasts of Lazio and Tuscany, in the Venetian plain, in the southern part of Apulia: in these regions, the density of events is comparable with that of the U.S. states with the highest TR rates. In contrast, the probability of significant TR in any Italian region is much smaller than that of the U.S. states with the highest risk.

Tornadic environments in the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands based on ERA5 reanalysis

Rodríguez

Bech

2020

A dataset of 907 tornado and waterspout events recorded from 1980 to 2018 was built to study convective environments in the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic Islands (western Mediterranean). The events were grouped into different categories, distinguishing waterspouts and tornadoes that were stratified by intensity according to the Fujita (F) scale and the Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale. The analysis separated the northeast (NE) and southwest (SW) subareas in the region of study, which present different seasonal cycles. For each event, atmospheric profiles from the ERA5 reanalysis data were used to determine convective available potential energy (CAPE), storm-relative helicity (SRH), vertical wind-shear (WS), the Universal Tornadic Index (UTI), and the product of wind-shear and the square root of two times CAPE (WMAXSHEAR). Results showed that the NE events are mostly associated with higher CAPE and lower helicity and wind-shear than the SW events. Thus, a significant number of SW tornadoes are associated with high-shear, low-CAPE environments. Moreover, the low-shear, high-LCL tornado environment, which is common inland during warm-season, is more usual in the NE subarea. Composite parameters such as the UTI and WMAXSHEAR 06 are good discriminators between significant and weak tornado events, although WMAXSHEAR 06 presents some limitations for the SW events due to low CAPE and weak differences in the WS (0-6 km) between the (E)F1 and (E)F2+ events. This weakness was resolved by using the 0-3 km WS instead of the 0-6 km WS when calculating the WMAXSHEAR. A new threshold for WMAXSHEAR 03 is proposed (500 m 2 Ás −2) to distinguish between significant and non-significant tornado environments. Finally, the Szilagyi Waterspout Nomogram, originally developed for the Great Lakes of North America, was successfully tested in the forecasting of waterspout formation for the first time in the western Mediterranean area, although the technique should be adapted to correctly detect coolseason mid-latitude waterspouts.