Storms Dudley and Eunice

Monitoring | Summary
Posting Date: February 17, 2022, 12:00:00 PM

Storm Dudley/Ylenia

The Met Office issued an amber wind warning covering central and southern Scotland and parts of England and Northern Ireland during the hours between 14:00 and midnight on February 16 GMT in anticipation of Storm Dudley. Wind gusts of 102 km (64 mph) have been reported for this storm. A yellow wind warning is now in effect into tomorrow for Dudley, as the storm exits the area.

All trains in Scotland and parts of England and the Netherlands were halted yesterday evening but some are up and running again today. No long distance trains were expected to run in the northern half of Germany before midday on Thursday, local time, according to Deutsche Bahn, as what has been dubbed Storm Ylenia there swept through the regions of Hesse, Saxony and southern Brandenburg. Airports in Germany have also canceled many flights due to the strong wind, including Berlin-Brandenburg Airport and Germany's largest airport in Frankfurt. Flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport were either delayed or canceled due to the high winds. Some domestic flights in Poland were rerouted to Budapest, Hungary.

Fallen trees and flooding from Dudley have caused road closures in some areas, particularly in the West Midlands of England and the west coast of Scotland.

Thousands of people in Cumbria, North Yorkshire, and Lancashire were left without power after Storm Dudley hit parts of northeast England. Out of 14,000 customers affected by power outages yesterday evening, 10,000 have had their power restored, according to Northern Powergrid.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, about 54,000 households lost electricity in the overnight hours; in Bavaria about 10,000 people were affected by power outages, often caused by trees falling on power lines, but in most cases, power was quickly restored. In the Czech Republic, more than 300,000 were left without power today.

Two people in Bad Bevensen, south of Hamburg, Germany, were killed when trees fell onto their cars as they were driving, and two in Krakow, Poland, were killed when a construction crane toppled onto their cars during high winds during the storm.

Storm Dudley will continue to sweep across Northern Europe today, bringing mainly high winds with some flooding and precipitation.  

Storm Eunice/Zeynep

After a brief lull this evening, more severe weather is expected tomorrow in Northern Europe with the arrival of Storm Eunice/Zeynep. The Met Office has issued another amber wind warning for much of England and Wales from 03:00 to 21:00 GMT tomorrow, as Storm Eunice could bring gusts of up to 128km/h (80 mph). Gusts of up to 160 km/h (100 mph) are possible along the coasts of west Wales and southwest England, according to the Met Office said. Such strong winds are very unusual for these parts of the UK. This storm is expected to cause significant disruption and present a danger to life. Flying debris and damage to homes are likely, as are impacts on transport, such as railway lines and bridges, and power outages. Countries in continental Northern Europe are also bracing for the arrival of this storm, where it is called Zeynep and will most likely have similar impacts tomorrow.

The ALERT Team will continue to monitor the impacts from Storms Dudley/Ylenia and Eunice/Zeynep. Pending continued evaluation of the storms’ impacts, we are currently planning for a potential ALERT release of industry loss estimates, Touchstone and Touchstone Re event sets, industry loss based similar stochastic events, and a shapefile of wind extents toward the end of next week. We will provide an update on timing and specifics on Tuesday, February 22.

Monitoring | Downloads
Posting Date: February 17, 2022, 12:00:00 PM