Mega Storm Ingunn "Margrit": Up to 180 km/h in Norway!
Germany is stuck in a swamp of several weak high and low pressure areas - further north things are much wilder. The storm Ingunn (AKA MARGRIT) is currently moving towards the west coast of Scandinavia and is causing storm and hurricane gusts in the north of Great Britain and on the west coast of Norway. A Sting Jet can even experience gusts of up to 180 km/h between Trondheim and Bodø.
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While in Central Europe the two high-pressure areas FRANK and ENNO as well as a small nameless alpine low with hardly any pressure differences are soaring ahead and ensuring quiet weather, Storm Ingunn (previously called MARGRIT) continues further north.
The fast-moving low already has a core pressure of 960 hPa, which will be reduced to about 940 hPa as part of a rapid intensification. The wind field extends over Great Britain and Ireland as well as the Scandinavian countries.
A Major winterstorm will hit #Norway on Wednesday. The system will undergo a rapid intensification and reach minimum pressure of 940 hPa or lower. Due to the fast storm movement 3-hourly pressure tendencies will exceed +/- 20 hPa! pic.twitter.com/pkcOuXtq9N
— Matthias Sänger (@myweather_ch) January 29, 2024
The west coast of Norway is particularly hard hit, where wind gusts of up to 50 m/s (180 km/h) are possible on Thursday night. Due to the structure of the storm low, the occurrence of a sting jet is also possible. Sting jets can form when the warm front of a low pressure area swirls around its core and air from higher atmospheric layers falls towards the earth's surface.
The Norwegian weather service has now given the storm the internationally valid name #INGUNN and issued the highest warning level for parts of the coast.
— Adrian Leyser (@TheNimbus) January 30, 2024
=>https://t.co/vqlvXyrJPX https://t.co/ObVTC6Rkkj pic.twitter.com/dcsFQRiKy5
The phenomenon is rather short-lived (up to 4 hours) and usually only occurs in a region of a maximum width of 100 km. In the current storm, the strongest wind speeds between Trondheim and Bodø are expected.
Extremely powerful storm is going to hit Norway and Scandianavia on Wed-Thu night.
— Mika Rantanen (@mikarantane) January 29, 2024
ECMWF forecast just out with wind gusts up to 50 m/s. It may be a bit overpredict, but the signal for a strong storm has been there for several days. pic.twitter.com/QGLZUGwoaX
Wind speeds beyond the storm and hurricane mark are not uncommon for the high latitudes, especially in the winter half-year. In the southern hemisphere, one speaks of the Roaring 40s, the Furious 50s and the Screaming 60s and thus refers to the stormy conditions in the respective latitudes. In the northern hemisphere, the conditions are not quite as extreme as in the southern hemisphere, because there are significantly more continental masses here that slow down the storms.
This week has started extremely windy for parts of far northern Europe. A violent storm hit Norway yesterday with some stations measuring gusts as high as 198 km/h. Another violent storm is due in the region on Wednesday night into Thursday.https://t.co/bgYRhqAXAv
— Meteologix.com (@meteologix) January 30, 2024
TT pic.twitter.com/62qJSIhI1B
A strong storm already passed Scandinavia north on the night of Tuesday. However, the maximum of the wind field was in the very north of Scandinavia, where gusts of up to 198 km/h were measured on the north and northwest coast of Norway. In Trondheim, 81 km/h were reached. In the adjacent coastal areas, 100 to 110 km/h were measured.