Library: WTW – A stormy end to winter: Loss estimates and storm science

Executive summary :

A stormy February cost lives and left the insurance industry and governments across Europe with a large repair bill. How bad were these storms, what were the impacts and how do they compare to some past events? Ongoing scientific research can advance our understanding of risk and increase resilience when clusters of storms occur.

Climate change means greater risk 

A tale of three storms

It’s been just a few weeks since Northern Europe was hit by a string of severe storms. The impacts are still being felt by those worst affected by the cluster of three major storms, the first such cluster since the winter of 2015/2016.

The Met Office, Met Eireann and the Dutch national meteorological service, KNMI, together name severe storms with a specific level of risk to public safety, in an effort to improve public awareness. Storms Dudley and Storm Eunice were both named on the 14th of February, their fates already determined by a powerful jet stream in the upper atmosphere seen in forecast models, and predicted to bring severe weather for the UK a few days later.

Storm Dudley reached Scotland on the 16th of February, followed a couple of days later by Eunice which passed over the UK further south. Eunice was a relatively rare storm going through explosive cyclogenesis, meaning that the central pressure of the storm dropped rapidly, in this case around 30mb in 18 hours as it approached the west coast of Ireland. Upper winds driving this rapid development of the storm were blowing at more than 200mph. Frontal systems brought further rain and strong winds over the next few days as Storm Franklin was waiting in the wings, before it arrived in the west of Scotland on the 21st of February, bringing more widespread wind and rain.

Eunice brought the most severe conditions, with a rare red warning issued by the Met Office in the UK. Four people were killed by falling trees, and power lines were brought down leaving millions of homes without electricity, some for several days. Transport was disrupted with flights cancelled, roads blocked and shipping ports too dangerous to use. Widespread damage to homes and commercial properties was reported, including severe damage to the roof of the Millennium Dome in London.

The timing was unfortunate for coastal regions too as the storm surge coincided with spring tides, leaving western coastlines and the Severn Estuary battered and damaged. While Dudley and Franklin either side of Eunice were severe storms in their own right, it was the compound effect of successive storms hampering preparation and recovery efforts which made matters worse. While the storms tended to move relatively quickly, their associated frontal systems brought a significant amount of accumulated rainfall through the week.

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