Hurricane report

[Reddwarf]

It is now morning of boxing day, and last night the annual Christmas hurricane hit southern Norway real hard, especially on the west coast. Heavy rain and wind speed of 42 m/s (that's 94.5 miles/hour) have done a lot of damages, and some 30.000 homes are without power. Roofs have been blown off, boats thrown on land or have sunk and sevral railroads are closed due to landslides or trees on the track. So far no lives have been reported lost, but the damages will be worth hundreds of millions. The hurricane is right now passing our neighbour country Sweden.

[pcostanza]

Wow, to show how ignorant I am, I never knew you even got Hurricanes in your part of the world. That would be registered as a #1 on the Saffir Simpson Scale we use in the states to gauge hurricane strength. The worst part for us is the lower, coastal towns that are affected by winds and tidal surges.
It doesn't take much to damage homes and trees easily fall in 90 MPH storms. Sorry to hear this happened this time of year but glad you came out ok.

[mvallevand]

I checked out hurricane earlier and it looks like this would be something similar called a "European Windstorm" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_windstorm which is a new term for me, but obviously not "tropical" like a hurricane that I know. Some languages don't differentiate the tropical aspect. Certainly they can have hurricane strength winds and cause severe damage and death.

Martin

[Reddwarf]

I checked out hurricane earlier and it looks like this would be something similar called a "European Windstorm" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_windstorm which is a new term for me, but obviously not "tropical" like a hurricane that I know. Some languages don't differentiate the tropical aspect. Certainly they can have hurricane strength winds and cause severe damage and death.

Martin

Yes we have, but they don't act exactly like the tropical ones. Our hurricanes are born in the atlantic ocean east of the warm current from the golf of Mexico. We call it a hurricane when winds are stronger than 32 m/s. I live in the inland so damages are minor compared to the coast, but I was born and raised at the coast of northern Norway, so I know these storms well.

We usually get a couple of strong storms this time of year, but this one was one of the worst in the last 30 years.