Fallen trees and slanting electric pillars in a handout image distributed by Vakka-Suomen Voima, a power utility serving parts of Southwest Finland. The company has reported that about 9,000 of its customers were temporarily without power following an unprecedented storm on Friday, 2 November 2024. By Sunday evening, power had been restored to all but 600 of them. (Handout – Vakka-Suomen Voima)
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HURRICANE-FORCE winds were recorded for the first time ever in the sea areas of Finland on Friday.
The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) reported that sustained winds of 33.5 metres per second – a hair above the official, 33-metres-per-second definition for hurricanes – at around 9pm on Friday on Kylmäpihlaja, an island located about 10 kilometres off Rauma, Southwest Finland.
Anna Latvala, a meteorologist at Foreca, described the phenomenon as fairly unusual in an interview with Helsingin Sanomat.
“Previously the only hurricane-force winds have been seen on fells, where they aren’t particularly uncommon. The conditions are completely different on fells than closer to sea level. It’s unusual that hurricane-force winds were witnessed out at sea,” she commented to the daily newspaper on Friday.
She also drew attention to the small area affected by the hardest wings, highlighting that wind speeds were significantly lower in the Gulf of Bothnia.
Helsingin Sanomat pointed out that no forecast indicated that wind speeds would be as high as they were on Friday, even though the storm season typically starts in late October or early November before peaking in December. Latvala explained to the newspaper that the possibility of a “proper storm” was evident in forecasts but added that it is difficult to accurately forecast the effects of numerous small and rapidly moving low-pressure systems.
“It’s difficult to say in advance which of them will strengthen and how much. The storm did at the end become stronger than forecast,” she said.
The storm caused widespread damage to electricity transmission infrastructure, leaving almost 40,000 households without power at 10pm on Friday, according to Finnish Energy. Fingrid, meanwhile, reported that the strong winds toppled a 400-kilovolt transmission tower in Eurajoki, Satakunta.
The winds also caused a car-and-passenger ferry to come off its moorings at the Port of Rauma.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
