ECCE Weather Club - Storm Ciarán: ingredients for an explosive cyclogenesis and how they could evolve in a warmer climate

Please use this Zoom link for online attendance.

Storm Ciarán: ingredients for an explosive cyclogenesis and how they could evolve in a warmer climate

Ciarán was a windstorm which impacted western Europe in early November 2023, bringing record-breaking gusts over Brittany, where it is classified the second most severe windstorm since 1980. It originated as a weak low-pressure system off the coast of Nova Scotia and crossed the North Atlantic, where it underwent an explosive cyclogenesis favoured by an extraordinarily powerful jet stream. This presentation aims to provide you with the basic background to understand the dynamics of extratropical cyclones and how they might evolve in a warmer climate. I will first present the meteorological ingredients that favoured the explosive cyclogenesis of Ciarán. Then, I will show how these ingredients might evolve in a warmer climate, and finally summarise the current knowledge on the impact of climate change on extratropical cyclones.