Der Wintersturm Burglind/Eleanor in der Schweiz

Abstract

During the morning of 3 January 2018, storm Burglind/Eleanor reached large parts of Switzerland. It was the strongest winter storm since Lothar in 1999 and brought exceptionally strong winds, especially in the Jura mountains and on the Swiss Plateau. Wind gusts of 90-130 km/h have been recorded on the Plateau, gusts of 140-170 km/h in mountain areas and up to 200 km/h in some exposed places. The Rhone valley, the northern and central Grisons have been affected only moderately by the storm. The southern slopes of the Alps have been mostly untroubled by the storm. The weather model predictions have shown signals of an upcoming storm already four days before the event. The evidence was confirmed later on and MeteoSwiss issued a “heavy storm” warning (warning level 3, serious danger) timely with wind gusts of 80-110 km/h on the Plateau, 100-130 km/h in slightly elevated areas and 130-160 km/h in higher elevations of the Jura mountains and the Alps. The warning was broadly correct. On the southern slopes of the Jura mountains, in the Jura around Neuchâtel, along the central Prealps, in the Toggenburg and in the north-easterly parts of the Plateau, wind gusts of warning level 4 (serious danger) have been reached. The numerical weather models COSMO-1 and COSMO-E from MeteoSwiss underestimated the wind gusts in the predictions in the beginning. The underestimation decreased clearly with increasing proximity to the event. The COSMO-1 model provided the best short-term forecasts and averaged over the whole of Switzerland. However, there was no additional benefit of the COSMO-1 model with respect to the other models on the Plateau north of the Alps. Burglind/Eleanor is the strongest winter storm in Switzerland since Lothar in 1999 and is one of the four strongest winter storms since 1981. In some places, record breaking wind gusts have been registered. In most regions however, the wind gusts of Lothar and Vivian were clearly stronger. A winter storm like Burglind/Eleanor is expected about every 5-20 years for most places on the Swiss Plateau. Burglind/Eleanor caused the largest infrastructure and forest damage from a winter storm since Lothar in 1999. The estimated infrastructure damage was around 165 Mio CHF (as of February 2018). There have been impairments in road- and rail-traffic and some interruptions in the power supply system. The storm felled around 1.3 million cubic metres of wood in Swiss forests. MeteoSwiss informed the authorities and the general public well and fact based. The most important means of communication were the MeteoSwiss website and the MeteoSwiss App. A climatological classification of the event was quickly provided. MeteoSwiss was positively mentioned on all media channels.