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Storm Eunice is Parts of the UK are being battered felling trees and scattering roof tiles as forecasters warn of a “significant threat to life”. Is it due to climate change? And can we expect more of these disruptive storms in the future?
Where did the storm come from
Eunice was brewed in the middle Atlantic and spun up by the jet stream from the Azores towards Europe.
Is it a particularly bad storm or is it just a normal storm?
Yes, gusts of up 110 mph were recorded at the Needles lighthouse in the Isle of Wight. This exceeds the 90mph winds prediction and is just below the Record setting winds of 120mphThat was during the 1987 hurricane, in which 18 people were killed.
According to the Met Office, Eunice could be the most severe storm since 2001. The Met Office has issued a rare red alert, asking people to stay home if possible. Cobra was convened by government to discuss the possible devastation ahead.
Prof Hannah Cloke, a professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, said: “The Met Office red and amber warnings for high winds should not be taken lightly. Red means that there is imminent danger to your life and you must act immediately. Everybody who lives or works near these areas should take immediate action to protect their homes and businesses and prevent others from being injured or killed.
“Let us be clear what this means. Winds of 70 mph can uproot trees and cause damage to buildings or roads. They can grab roof tiles and throw them around. You can be seriously injured or even killed if you are struck by one of these. Wind that strong will sweep cars and people off the streets, and topple electricity lines. Don’t take chances. Stay inside.”
There is talk of a deadly ‘sting jet’ coming with the storm, but what is that?
Met Office Scientists believe one of these forms can form.. Matt Priestley, a research scientist at the University of Exeter, looking at storm tracks and extratropical cyclones, said they were small areas of very intense winds within a storm’s cyclone that were hard to predict.
“They are generally about 10-20km wide and are generated by specific instabilities within the flight lines of storms and cause very high wind speeds.
“They’re not a feature of all storms. They’re often just a feature of the most intense ones like Storm Eunice. The fact that they are such small scale but can have such high wind speeds makes forecasting them very, very difficult.”
Is Eunice related to climate breakdown?
MetDesk forecaster Michael Dukes said it could. He explained: “Although it is hard to pinpoint climate change as a reason for individual severe weather events, climate models do indicate an increase in these type of storms as the earth continues to slowly warm. So this is very much in line with what climate scientists have been warning us about for a number of years now.”
Although scientists disagree about whether the storms will grow or become stronger, most agree that they will be worsened by the climate crisis.
Friederike Otto, a German climatologist, is the pioneering figure. World Weather Attribution service on whether droughts, big storms or heatwaves were made more likely by the climate emergency, said there was “very little evidence that winds in these winter storms have gotten stronger with climate change”.
She said: “Nevertheless the damages of winter storms have gotten worse because of human-caused climate change for two reasons: one, the rainfall associated with these winter storms has become more intense, and many studies link this clearly to climate change; and two, because of sea-level rise, storm surges are higher and thus more damaging than they would otherwise be.”
Richard Allan, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading, said: “Once-in-a-decade storms like Eunice are certain to batter the British Isles in the future but there is no compelling evidence that they will become more frequent or potent in terms of wind speeds.
“Yet with more intense rainfall and higher sea levels as human-caused climate change continues to heat the planet, flooding from coastal storm surges and prolonged deluges will worsen still further when these rare, explosive storms hit us in a warmer world.”
