Ciarán is not yet out of the way or the next storm is already on the way: “There is a good chance that the French and Spanish weather services will warn with code orange” | Storm Ciaran

Storm Ciarán was announced earlier this week as a very severe storm with devastating wind speeds of up to 180 kilometers per hour. The warnings for this storm turned out to be justified, because exceptionally high wind gusts were actually measured at various French measuring stations during the night from Wednesday to Thursday and Thursday morning. The storm was even slightly more powerful than predicted. Several French measuring stations along the Breton coast even measured wind gusts between 190 and 200 km/h. The Point De Raz measuring station in Finistère took the cake with a wind gust of 207 km/h.

That is very exceptional. Absolute wind records were broken for many weather stations. These weather stations have never recorded such high wind speeds before in the history of measurement. The storm was accompanied by a lot of damage.

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The western French coast in particular has had a hard time recently due to storm Ciarán. It looks like peace will not return immediately in France. On the contrary, one can expect another storm in the next 24 hours. In the wake of Storm Ciarán, a small but vicious storm depression developed over the Bay of Biscay last night.

This morning the depression center will move across the south of France. On the southern flank of the storm, a vicious and fairly strong wind field is developing that will mainly affect the south-west coast of France and the northernmost coasts of Spain. If the French or Spanish weather service gives this depression a name, it will be Domingos. Although it remains to be seen whether the low-pressure area will be named separately or linked to storm Ciarán.

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Afterwards, all eyes will be focused on the Atlantic Ocean, where another storm depression will develop during the course of Friday. Under the influence of the tight jet stream, an extensive depression will form again that will quickly deepen into the next storm. The pressure at the core of this depression will drop to just below 960 hectopascals. That is again very low, but less low than during storm Ciaran. In all likelihood, this storm will be slightly less powerful than storm Ciaran.

If the storm were again the first to be named by the British weather service, this storm would be named Debi. If the French weather service were to name it, this storm would be called either Domingos or Elisa. The choice of name will depend on whether Storm Domingos has been named before.

The small storm depression that passed over the Bay of Biscay last night was accompanied by heavy gusts of wind at sea, especially in the southernmost part of the Gulf. There was a 9 to 10 Beaufort there. The southwestern coast of France also experienced wind gusts above 100 km/h during the night. There had also been warnings of flooding due to sea water build-up. Once on land, however, the strength of the winds decreased rapidly, with gusts inland around 80 km/h.

This weekend’s storm depression will be accompanied by a strong wind field over a larger area. Yet it appears to be the southwest coast of France again where the storm field will be most intense. The storm will peak by Saturday evening and overnight into Sunday. The storm will then move onto the mainland and at the same time lose more and more strength. Like Ciarán, the storm depression will move further via the UK towards the North Sea on Sunday. On the eastern flank of the depression core, the wind gradient will increase somewhat, also in our region.

At the height of the storm, winds will increase to 9 to 10 Beaufort in the Bay of Biscay, with gusts of up to 140 km/h. At sea, speeds of up to 150 km/h are even possible. The coastal regions bordering this area will bear the brunt. There the wind gusts can easily reach 130 km/h. This mainly concerns the north coast of Spain and the south-west coast of France. On mainland France and also in our country, the wind will blow quite strong to temporarily strong on Saturday. The wind gusts on the mainland will then peak regionally up to a maximum of 90 km/h.

Because the storm is accompanied by a westerly to northwesterly wind, in addition to the gusts of wind, we will again have to be careful of flooding as a result of rising seawater. Due to the large distance that the wind can travel over the ocean, wave heights can peak to over 10 meters. These waves will crash on the coastlines, making the risk of flooding and water damage quite high. There is a good chance that the French and Spanish weather services will warn about this in the coming days with a code orange.

The focus of the storm on Saturday, like Ciarán, will mainly be on France. We will still have a good breeze during the weekend, but the wind gusts will remain more limited. It is currently difficult to estimate exactly how strong the wind would blow in our area. A fairly strong to sometimes strong wind is currently expected (wind force 5 to temporarily 6), with gusts between 60 and 80 km/h. Possibly enough for another code yellow. Some weather models predict local peaks of 90 km/h or slightly more, but this must be confirmed in the coming days. It looks like Saturday’s storm will be much less powerful than storm Ciarán. Another code orange is probably not an option.

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