Storms of the Century (Europe)

[HurricaneBill]

Remember when the Weather Channel did the Top 10 U.S. Storms of the 20th Century back in late 1999?

It got me curious. What European storms would be considered Europe's worst/significant storms of the 20th century?

It doesn't have to be ranked in any way or only 10.

At The Weather Channel, the obvious choice was to look back on the hurricanes, tornadoes, and blizzards that not only shattered records, they completely reshaped both landscapes and lives.

Instead of hurricanes, use European windstorms.

Remember, the storms had to have happened between 1900-1999.

[HurricaneBill]

Oh, and in case you were curious what the U.S. storms were:

#10: (tie) 1972 Hurricane Agnes
#10: (tie) 1992 Hurricane Andrew
#9: 1962 "Ash Wednesday" Storm
#8: 1950 "Great Appalachian" Storm
#7: 1925 "Tri-State" Tornado
#6: 1969 Hurricane Camille
#5: 1938 "Great New England" Hurricane
#4: 1900 Galveston Hurricane
#3: 1993 Superstorm
#2: 1974 Tornado Super Outbreak
#1: 1935 Labor Day Hurricane

[Aslkahuna]

The January 1953 storm has to be way up there on any list of worst European storms of the 20th Century.

Steve

[HenkL]

On the KNMI site there is a list of all the heavy storms for the Netherlands since 1910. KNMI defines a 'heavy storm' having a mean one hour windspeed of at least 10 Beaufort (= 24.5 m/s or 48 knots).
The table shows (after year and date) 3 columns for high mean windspeed in one hour, and 2 columns for the highest gust.
See: http://www.knmi.nl/klimatologie/lijsten/zwarestorm.html
As you can see the 1953 storm wasn't the heaviest one for the Netherlands, when looking at wind speed. A lot of storms were (and are) heavier in Great Britain then near the Dutch coast. The combination of storm driven swell at the back side of the storm with spring tide caused the flooding in 1953 (1836 people drowned in NL).

France and Germany had very heavy storms on December 26 en 27 1999 (named Lothar and Martin).

[HurricaneBill]

Windstorm Vincinette in 1962 would probably be on the list. It produced a surge that swept through Hamburg, Germany.

The 1984 Russian Tornado Outbreak would probably be on the list too. Unfortunately, very little info is available about it on the internet. On a different forum, a Russian poster said it's unlikely much info would be available because it happened when Russia was the USSR.

[Cryomaniac]

The great storm of '87 comes to mind.

[Crostorm]

Storm Deep in ex-Hurricane "Irene"
A gigantic storm is low on 20.10.99 at the Atlantic from the ex-Hurricane "Irene". Something happens quite often when the Hurrikanes from the coasts of the United States continue to migrate north. They reach colder water, and they are weakening. Often they arrive in the Westwinddzone the temperate latitudes. There will then convert them into ordinary außertropische cyclones, and can thus also to Central Europe. Although such ex-Hurrikanes during injection into the west wind zone most of its wind energy, we can from them but still huge Sturmtiefs develop. And that happened on 20.10.99 on the Atlantic! The huge underground storm reached far west before Ireland on 20.10.99 its peak and walked slowly weakening under further east.

http://www.seewetter-kiel.de/seewetter/orkan_irene.htm

[Crostorm]

The great storm of '87 comes to mind.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/p ... w1986.html

[KWT]

Really tough to make that sort of call being I live in only a small part of Europe and my deeper knowleadge of storm history makes it very tough to make that call.
However for the UK certainly the great storm of 87 is up there and so would the 53 storm.