hurricane
In the broader sense, winds with a force of 12 on the Beaufort scale are referred to as a hurricane ; in the narrower sense, it is understood as North Atlantic lows in which such winds with force 12 occur.
In the past, all winds with hurricane strength were called hurricanes. Hurricane winds can occur, for example, in tropical cyclones , in strong extra-tropical low pressure areas , in tornadoes and in downbursts . Today only North Atlantic low pressure areas with winds at hurricane strength are referred to as "hurricanes".
etymology
The word "hurricane" is an etymological duplicate of the word " hurricane ": both ultimately go back to the language of the Taíno , the indigenous people of the Greater Antilles . Conceivable, but not proven, is a connection between the Taíno word (which was first documented in 1511/1516 by Petrus Martyr von Anghiera in the Latinized plural form furacanes ) with Huracán or Hun-r-akan , the name of one for heavy storms responsible deity of the Maya of the Central American mainland, who were not linguistically related to the Taíno and also culturally very different.
Via Spanish ( huracán , first attested in 1526), this word found its way into Portuguese ( furacão ), English ( hurricane ) and French ( ouragan ) in the 16th century , and in the late 17th century via Dutch ( orkaan ; in this spelling for the first time Attested in 1676, but previously in forms such as uracaen , horkaen and orancaen ) as "hurricane" finally also into German (for the first time in 1669) and subsequently enjoyed some popularity in baroque poetry, which in turn was known for its aversion to foreign words Philipp von Zesen had suggested that instead of “hurricane” it should be better to write “hell storm”. However, this Germanization (which for its part probably ties in with the Orcus of Roman mythology) - unlike some other Zesen word creations such as address for address or passion for passion - could not prevail; On the contrary, "Orkan" developed into the German scientific and everyday language as the standard term for the Atlantic storms that sweep across Europe, especially in autumn and winter. As a "hurricane" (borrowed from English in the 19th century, previously found in forms such as Furacan at best as exoticism in travelogues), however, the tropical cyclones of the North Atlantic and the Eastern Pacific are now referred to.
Emergence
Hurricanes in the narrower sense, i.e. extra-tropical low-pressure areas, occur primarily in autumn and winter, as the temperature differences between the polar region and the tropics are particularly large during this time. When these air masses meet ( occlusion ), strong storms arise.
On the mainland , except on exposed mountain peaks, islands and coastal areas, moderate winds with hurricane strength are rare because of the increased ground friction . Usually such high wind speeds are only reached in gusts .
The hurricane or the hurricane gust is to be distinguished by definition from the hurricane-like storm or the hurricane-like gust, in which only a wind force 11 on the Beaufort scale is reached.
Notable hurricanes in the strict sense
- Märzorkan 1876 , March 1876 - top speed: approx. 170 km / h
- Augustorkan 1956 , August 25, 1956 - Top speed in the lowlands over 120 km / h
- Adolph-Bermpohl-Hurricane , February 23, 1967 - the heaviest hurricane known to date on the German North Sea coast and in the German Bight. Average wind speed over several hours: 149 km / h (Helgoland), peak gusts could not be measured; probably well over 200 km / h.
- Quimburga (Lower Saxonyorkan ), November 13, 1972 - Top speed: 245 km / h
- Capella , January 3, 1976 - Top speed: 145 km / h
- Daria , January 26, 1990 - Top speed: 200 km / h
- Vivian , April 25-27 February 1990 - Top speed: 268 km / h
- Wiebke , February 28/1. March 1990 - Top speed: 285 km / h
- Anatol , 2nd / 3rd December 1999 - Top speed: 183 km / h
- Lothar , December 26, 1999 - Top speed: 272 km / h
- Jeanett , 26./27. October 2002 - top speed 183 km / h
- Gudrun , 8./9. January 2005 - Top speed: 151 km / h
- Kyrill , January 18, 2007 - Top speed: 225 km / h
- Tilo , November 9, 2007 - Top speed: 137 km / h
- Paula , 26./27. January 2008 - top speed: 230 km / h
- Emma , 1st / 2nd March 2008 - Top speed: 236 km / h
- Xynthia , April 25-28 February 2010 - Top speed: 238 km / h
- Joachim , December 16, 2011 - top speed 212 km / h
- Andrea , January 5th, 2012 - Top speed: 270 km / h (Meteomedia, Konkordiahütte)
- Christian , 27./28. October 2013 - top speed: 171 km / h (St. Peter-Ording)
- Xaver , 5th / 6th December 2013 - Top speed: 229 km / h (Aonach Mòr, Scotland)
- Niklas , March 29–1. April 2015 - top speed: 213 km / h (Zugspitze)
- Egon, 12./13. January 2017 - Top speed: 140 km / h (Germany), 154 km / h (Säntis, Switzerland)
- Friederike , January 18, 2018 - Top speed: 204 km / h (Brocken)
- Sabine , 9./10. February 2020 - top speed: 219 km / h (Cap Corse, France)
Economic consequences
The economic consequences of hurricanes can be limited to individual areas, but can also affect large regions. Material damage can be divided into direct damage (buildings, infrastructure, forests, automobiles, etc.) and indirect damage (clean-up work, production losses, follow-up costs, etc.). Not all damage is insured, so the total damage is often more than twice as high as the insured damage. Due to the development of information technology , the systematic recording of damage has improved significantly over the past few decades. When making statements in the context of the controversy about global warming , it should be noted that there are differences between personal observations, the actual frequency and the damage reported. The Munich Reinsurance Company writes: “Compared to many regions of the world, Germany and the other countries of Central Europe are not overly threatened by natural hazards. ... The extraordinarily high population density and the enormous concentration of economic values mean that almost every major natural event becomes a damaging event - and often enough also a real natural disaster. "
Examples from Germany are:
- The hurricane low in Quimburga on November 13, 1972 caused property damage in Germany amounting to 1.34 billion DM (in today's purchasing power 2.23 billion euros).
- Hurricane Kyrill destroyed almost 20 million cubic meters of wood nationwide on January 18, 2007, according to data from the German Forestry Council (DFWR) . Roughly extrapolated, this should correspond to more than 40 million trees. In the forests of North Rhine-Westphalia, Kyrill caused the greatest damage ever recorded there. The Sauerland and Siegerland were particularly affected. According to the information provided by the State Forestry and Wood Office , he knocked over around 25 million trees in NRW. According to information from the German Insurance Association (GDV) from November 2008, German insurers paid out around 2.4 billion euros to their customers for over 2.3 million claims.
In Germany, building insurance contracts regularly provide for liability for storm damage. The General Insurance Conditions for Residential Buildings (Section 8 VGB 88) understand storms to mean a weather-related air movement of at least wind force 8. The definition in Section 3 (3) a FEVB is similar, according to which it is an atmospheric air movement of at least wind force 8 to Beaufort got to. The insurance law term thus deviates from the meteorological terminology. According to the relevant Beaufort scale, strength 8 means "stormy wind that breaks branches of trees and makes walking outdoors considerably more difficult". The policyholder of a building insurance who claims the presence of a storm can be exposed to verification difficulties in borderline cases. To prove storm damage, it is of course not necessary that proof of direct impact of an air movement of at least wind force 8 on the insured building is provided. In the opinion of the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court , it is sufficient that damage caused by air movements has occurred to the building and that a wind force 8 storm has occurred in its vicinity at the same time.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Article huracan. In: Georg Friederici : Americanist Dictionary. Cram, de Gruyter & Co, Hamburg 1947, pp. 304-306.
- ↑ CH de Goeje: Nouvel examen des langues des antilles avec notes sur les langues arawak-maipure ete caribes et vocabulaires shebayo et guyana (Guyane) . Société des Américanistes, Paris 1939, p. 12.
- ↑ orkaan. In: Marlies Philippa among others: Etymologically Woordenboek van het Nederlands. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2003-2009.
- ↑ Hurricane. In: Digital dictionary of the German language .
- ↑ Hurricane. In: Trübner's German dictionary. on behalf of the Working Group for German Word Research ed. by Alfred Götze, continued by Walter Mitzka, Volume 5 (OR), Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1954, pp. 34–35.
- ↑ hurricane. In: Herbert Schmid and others: German foreign dictionary . 2nd Edition. Volume 7 ( habilitation - hysterical ), de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2011, pp. 506–508.
- ↑ hurricane. In: Digital dictionary of the German language .
- ↑ Horror balance: Hurricane kills 24 and injures 160. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. August 27, 1956, accessed July 30, 2015.
- ↑ Hurricane, strong storme and stormfloder. ( Memento from April 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Nationalt Riskillede. P. 9. (Danish)
- ↑ Weather report. SRF Meteo, accessed on January 14, 2017 .
- ↑ Wind gusts on January 18th, 2018, 6 hours (km / h). Kachelmannwetter.com, accessed on January 19, 2018 .
- ↑ Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) - Storm Damage Risk, accessed on May 7, 2010.
- ↑ Munich Reinsurance Company: Natural disasters in Germany - loss experience and loss potential. , Munich 1999, accessed on October 29, 2018
- ↑ Tagesschau , from January 22, 2007 (tagesschau.de archive).
- ↑ GDV press release of November 7, 2008 ( Memento of March 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ OLG Karlsruhe, judgment of April 12, 2005 , Az. 12 U 251/04, full text.