European windstorm season may peter out through March on El Niño effects
The European windstorm season could stall after its overactive start, fitting the pattern known from El Niño years, analysts at WTW believe.
The North Atlantic should generate “fewer storms for the remainder of the season, aligning with the typical El Niño response of early winter storminess followed by reduced activity in late winter,” WTW analysts said of forecasts.
The 2023/4 storm season has had an “active start” with some four times the average count of named storms.
As of early January 2024, the leading European meteorological institutes have christened 20 storms in their respective jurisdictions, including 8 designations from the UK Met Office for storms impacting Western Europe. That’s up from an average count of 4.5 per year.
From January to March, El Niño typically leads to “atmospheric blocking,” in which high-pressure systems stagnate over the northern Atlantic, impeding the typical eastward movement of weather systems.
Model forecasts on sea level pressure over the Atlantic are now saying exactly that, WTW noted. Meteorologists are now forecasting "a clear pattern of anomalous high pressure" to the northwest of the UK “consistent with a southward deviation and weakening of the North Atlantic storm track,” colder weather and reduced storm frequency, WTW said.
Not all of the 20 named storms went by without making their mark. Storm Ciarán took the podium to date, generating record-breaking wind gusts exceeding 200 kilometres per hour in France, spawning nine tornados and leading to 21 fatalities and insured losses estimated at €1.9 billion, France’s most significant individual event since Storm Klaus in 2009.
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