Not Really A Hurricane, But…
The BBC reports: North Sea surge brings flood risk
A storm in the North Sea has left Britain and the Netherlands facing the worst flood threat in decades with tidal surges predicted early on Friday.
Flood defences have been put on alert on the entire Dutch coast and flood warnings are in place for the eastern and northern coasts of Britain.
Dr. Jeff Masters notes: Huge North Sea storm threatens England and the Netherlands with serious flooding
A massive fall storm over Europe’s North Sea is generating winds near hurricane force that is expected to push a dangerous storm surge over 3 meters (10 feet) in height to the coast Friday morning. The storm is being compared to the great North Sea Flood of 1953 that pushed a 5.6 meter storm surge that breached the dikes in the Netherlands. Over 2,000 people died in northern Europe in that storm, mostly in the Netherlands. While today’s storm will not approach the 1953 storm in severity, the storm may generate a once in 20 years type of flooding event. Thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate in the United Kingdom, and the massive flood gates that protect the Dutch port of Rotterdam are being closed for the first time since they were constructed in the 1990s. The worst of the storm surge is expected to hit the Netherlands near 7am local time Friday.
Dr. Masters includes some nasty looking graphics of this sucker. It isn’t “tropical”, so, in addition to all of the other problems associated with a tropical storm you can have several feet of snow, instead of inches of rain, and the interruption in the crude oil supply will be in the North Sea fields, instead of the Gulf.
It’s time to find out if the changes they made in the Netherlands after the last big storm work.
4 comments
Scary. I have several American musician friends (former colleagues) who live in Amsterdam, so I have a personal interest in the outcome. Thanks for the alert.
Amsterdam is my favorite city in the world. I spent a lot of time there when I was in Europe and used it as my base when I went wandering around. I would hate to see it under water.
I checked Weather Underground a short time ago, and it looks like they dodged the bullet… parts of the UK flooded, but not as badly as expected; Netherlands, meanwhile, enjoyed the apparent success of that technology they put in place a couple of decades ago. Whew!
I’ve never been to Amsterdam. My friends come here on American tours occasionally; we visit on this side of the pond. Maybe I should go see the place before it washes away…
Take some good walking shoes, and you bike, so you’re set for longer trips. Be prepared for narrow buildings and spiral staircases. It is a compact city, and friendly, but go in the warmer months because the wind can be bitter off the North Sea.