Webcast

Catastrophic flash flood in Madeira Island

During early morning and morning on 20th February 2010 an extreme and rare flash flood event has occurred in the Portuguese island of Madeira in the North Atlantic, causing 42 casualties, 600 homeless and an estimated loss of around 1000 millions euros. In this presentation, the synoptic environment will be presented and the precipitation producing systems affecting the island will be discussed. The analysis will be mainly performed using satellite imagery from Meteosat 9, both from singles channels and RGB images, as well as from objective estimates of rain and water vapor content. Results from following studies on the precipitation regime of this mountainous island will also be presented.

 Lecture slides...

Filed under Keywords:

floods, Madeira, RGB composites, atmospheric rivers