A Tornado at Warrington (1798)

In the introduction to my coffee table book on tornadoes and waterspouts in Europe, I wrote that there are still more historical depictions of these meteorological phenomena in libraries and archives across Europe waiting to be re-discovered. A tweet posted recently by Warrington Museum showed that I was right. The tweet was companied by a beautiful depiction of the "singular phenomena" that occurred on 16 June 1798 in the neighbourhood of Warrington. Almost immediately I contacted Warrington Archives and Local History and they were very helpful in providing more details about the event, details published in an article in The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle in August 1799. A transcript of the article is shown below.

“[...] A dark thick cloud of a considerable extent and forming almost a direct line parallel to the horizon lowered over part of the adjoining country, chiefly Cheshire, when towards the centre a water spout of immense magnitude appeared lengthening by degrees until it assumed a formidable appearance in the shape of a sugar loaf reversed and extending from base to point to the eye of the spectator nearly 1-16th of the whole hemisphere.  It moved in a curvilinear form the point inclining from the South, the cloud stretching out due North and South. It frequently varied its size sometimes extending within a few feet of the ground then seemingly drawn upwards. At one time it remained stationary in respect to form and situation for near ten minutes but never burst not meeting as supposed with attracting fluid which at sea serves to form that immense body of water which at last breaks from its own weight. After varying its length for some moments longer it entirely disappeared and was embodied in the cloud. Between the cloud and the horizon the sky appeared a dusky yellow which served to mark the dark edge of the cloud and the waterspout with a peculiar gloom. After the appearance of this phaenomenon there was scarce a day passed here for the continuance of nearly a month that it did not rain in perfect torrent. Its appearances were during the time of the Newton races to the no little dismay of the crowd assembled on that occasion and to the horror of the farmers who foreboded in consequence some most melancholy catastrophe to their harvest. I send you a drawing taken on the spot of the singular appearance it presented.”

— The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle (1799)

The "singular phenomena" observed on 16 June 1798 in the neighbourhood of Warrington (courtesy of Warrington Archives and Local History, Culture Warrington).

Form the description is not clear if this event was indeed a tornado, a waterspout, or a funnel cloud that extended very closed to the ground. Nevertheless, this is another great example of how detailed and beautiful are some of the historical descriptions and depictions of tornadoes, waterspouts, and funnel clouds in Europe. 

(Many thanks, to David Gelsthorpe (@paleomanchester) from the Manchester Museum for pointing to me the tweet from Warrington Museum (@warringtonmus), and to Warrington Archives and Local History, Culture Warrington for their help. #archivescience #explorearchives.)

A tornado near Hague on July 1751

A beautiful representation of a tornado near Hague (Netherlands) on July 1751 by the Dutch lawyer Jan Francois Dryfhout. This is one of the very few representations of tornadoes from the 18th Century (the majority of the depictions from this period were for waterspouts). The case was not included by Wegener in his collection of tornadoes and waterspouts in Europe (Wegener 1917). 

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Fig. 1 - Plate I from Dryfhout (1757) showing the evolution of a tornado near Hague on July 1751 (courtesy of Universiteitsbibliotheek Gent).

The first Plate (Fig. 1) shows the evolution of the tornado from growth to decay (Plate I, Figs. I–V). Figure V show the final stage when the tornado was drifting out to sea "having lost its upright posture, [it] was blown upward toward south, in the manner of a fluttering ribbon" (Leighly 1974). 

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Fig. 2 - Plate II from Dryfhout (1757) showing the parent cloud of a tornado near Hague on July 1751 (courtesy of Universiteitsbibliotheek Gent).

The second Plate (Fig. 2) shows the parent cloud of the tornado and suggest the presence of mammatus clouds (see Schultz et al. 20056 for a review). Dryfhout describes the parent cloud as "composed of a great number of smaller cloudlets, resembling round balls" (Leighly 1974).  

The complete description of this event can be found here. Unfortunately I can not read Dutch, but I would be very gratefully for any help on obtaining more details about this tornado (and maybe we can write a short article about it).

source: Dryfhout, J. F.:  Nauuwkeurige beschouwinge van een hoos, benevens een ondersoek, 
hoe dezelve geboren worden en werken (A detailed examination of a tornado formation and additional research on how they form and function). Verhandelingen uitgegeven door de Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen te Haarlem, 3, 321–377. (PDF via Google Books).

References

Leighly, J., 1974: An Early Drawing and Description of a Tornado, Isis, 65, 474–486. (link)

Wegener, A. L., 1917: Wind- und Wasserhosen in Europa. Vieweg, Braunschweig, 301 pp. (link)

The first tornado climatology for Romania

The latest issue of the Monthly Weather Review (March 2015) contains the first tornado climatology for Romania. Our aim in developing this climatology was not only to show that tornadoes do occur in Romania, but also to contribute to the climatology of tornadoes in Europe by providing the spatial and temporal distribution of tornadoes over a region in Eastern Europe. In my previous post - Tornadoes in Romania: From dragons to radars, in which I have tried to tell the story behind this climatology - I haven't explained why I have included the dragon in the title. I am going to provide an explanation in this post. 

The first tornado report in Romania is from the beginning of the nineteenth century, from a period that coincides with the development of national and regional newspaper-type publications (e.g., the first Romanian newspapers, Albina Românească and Curierul Românesc, were first published in 1829) and also with the emergence of organized meteorological observations (e.g., the Prince Nicolae Şuţu included in his "Notiţii Statistice asupra Moldovei" (Statistical notes about Moldova) observations made between 1839–1840 at Iaşi). Obviously tornadoes were observed in Romania before the  nineteenth century, but without any written reports these observations were lost. One way to recover these observations is based on folklore sources.  Since tornadoes have a high impact on human communities, then they must have been represented in the Romanian folk mythology. In the paper we conjecture that in the Romanian folk mythology tornadoes are related to the figure of the dragon (balaur in Romanian) and the sorcerer (solomonar in Romanian). Andrei Oişteanu in his book "Ordine si Haos" (Order and Chaos, 2013) showed that for the folk mentality, the dragon is the Principal of Disorder, which disturbs the order of nature and human communities by bringing thunderstorms and hail. The solomonar, the Principle of Order, is a sorcerer that has the power to control the weather elements and to subdue the dragon. 

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The Dragon and the sorcerer as seen by Marcel Olinescu in "Mitologie Românească" (Romanian Mythology) (source).

The description of the dragons in the folklore sources varies from one region to another, but with some common characteristics. Thus, the dragon has a long tail “swinging when it is up into the cloud” (representing the funnel cloud) and “slapping with a loud noise when it is touching the ground” (representing the tornado itself); the dragon’s head is either the head of a crocodile or the head of a horse (representing the anvil of the cumulonimbus cloud); the dragon’s breath “is so cold that [it] is freezing the water in the clouds” thus producing large hail (sometimes associated with tornadic events); the dragon is also able to “lift people up into the clouds”.

Distribution of the folklore sources in which the tornadoes are mentioned as dragons (source).

Thus, we argue that tornadoes were not unknown events in Romania before the nineteenth century, as shown by the geographical distribution of the folklore sources in which the tornadoes are mentioned as dragons. For southeastern Romania, a region were a large number of tornadoes are reported in the recent period, no folklore sources could be identified in which tornadoes are represented as dragons. 

I would end this post with a quote from "The Dragon" (1928) by Mihail Sadoveanu (1880–1961) which I think the illustrates perfectly our conjecture about tornadoes in dragons: 

“Over Moldova [i.e, northeast Romania], beyond the Bolandars hills, the sky was moving and bending as it was turning against the earth ; and a roar beyond measure, one never heard before, filled the valleys as it was getting near; and all those present, turning their faces and staring around saw the dragon coming in a spiralling whirlwind at a great speed. I saw it with my own eyes and I trembled. It was coming straight towards us. With a thin tail like a black scroll, it was touching the ground and its body was high up in the air and its mouth was gaping like that of a lioness in the clouds.
It was coming roaring and swinging its tail; its very breath was sucking throwing into the sky haystacks, house roofs and uprooted trees. Beneath the roar, a downpour of hail and water was unleashed as if the whole Moldova riverbed was taken to the sky and then knocked down on us.”

— Mihail Sadoveanu, Excerpt from “The Dragon” (from Ancuta’s Inn, collection of short stories)

(It is interesting to note that this collection of short stories was listed as a compulsory reading for high school students during a period in which was considered that tornadoes do not occur in Romania.) 

On the history of tornadoes observations in Europe

In my previous post I have shown the spatial distribution of tornadoes in Europe based on tornado reports between 2004–2013. I have chosen this interval because this is the interval during which the European Severe Weather Database has been actively collecting tornadoes and waterspouts reports in Europe (the operational phase of  ESWD started in 2006). The efforts of the ESWD were not concentrated only on the recent events, but also on collecting historical tornado and waterspout reports. To show the history of tornado observations in Europe, I have animated the spatial distribution of tornadoes and waterspouts in five year intervals between 1800–2013 using data from ESWD.

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The spatial distribution of tornadoes and waterspouts in Europe in five years intervals between 1800–2013 based on data from the European Severe Weather Database. The new tornado and waterspout reports are represented in orange and the previous reports in blue.

The animation starts from zero in 1800. However, this does not signify that tornadoes were not reported before the XIX century, but only that between 1800–1804 we do not have any records of tornadoes or waterspouts in Europe. In fact,  tornadoes have been reported in Europe since the beginning of the XI century. The earliest tornado reported in Europe occurred at Rosdalla (near Kolbeggan) in Ireland on 30 April 1054.  A systematic documentation of tornadoes and waterspouts began in the XIX century. Before the XIX century there are only three notable contributions to the study of European tornadoes. The first is a study by the French theologian François Lamy in which "physical conjectures" on the formation of tornadoes (in particular on the formation of a tornado that occurred near Reims, France on 10 August 1680) are presented. The second is a "physical-mathematical dialogue" by the Italian astronomer Geminiano Montanari describing a tornado that occurred on 29 July 1686 over Mantova, Padova and Verona (northern Italy). The third is a study by Roger Joseph Boscovich of a tornado that occurred in Rome (Italy) on the night between 11 and 12 June 1749.  

If we return now to the animation and we focus only on the reports before the 1930, we observe that the majority of these reports came from France and Germany. This is not surprising if we take into account the research on tornadoes in this two countries. 

In France, Jean Charles Athanase Peltier published in 1840 a study entitle Météorologie: Observations et recherches expérimenta les sur les causes qui concourent à la formation des trombes" (Meteorology: Observations and experimental research on the causes that contribute to the formation of tornadoes ).  Peltier, who began his career as watchmaker and watch dealer, later become interested in experimental physics (electrodynamics in particular, see Peltier effect), atmospheric electricity and meteorology. In his book, Peltier does not only critically discuss the major theories from the XIX century on the formation of tornadoes, but also does an excellent job of collecting and analysing tornado reports from Europe. Thus, his study contains what is probably the first tornado climatology for Europe.

Alfred Lothar Wegener, a German meteorologist and polar researcher, mainly remembered today for advancing the theory of continental drift, continued Peltier's work of collecting tornado and waterspout reports in Europe.  While recuperating in a military hospital in Berlin from an injury he suffered as a German soldier during World War I, Wegener developed his comprehensive study of tornadoes and waterspouts in Europe. Published in 1917, Wind- und Wasserhosen in Europa (Tornadoes and waterspouts in Europe) is a classic of tornado research literature. Based on tornado and waterspout reports between 1456 and 1916 (258 reports), Wegener estimated that at least 100 tornadoes and waterspouts are observed each year in Europe. In my previous post I have estimated, using tornado reports from ESWD, that in average 233 tornadoes were reported each year (between 2004–2013) in Europe. In a recent study, Groenemeijer and Kühne estimated using data from ESWD, that on average approximately  480 tornadoes and waterspouts are reported across Europe each year (between 2006–2013).

If we return again to the animation and focus this time on the reports after 1930, we observe that most of these reports still came from Western Europe and that there is a lack of tornado reports over Eastern Europe. This lack of tornado reports is associated with non-meteorological factors. For example, in some socialist countries from Eastern Europe (e.g., Romania) the word tornado was forbidden in the official meteorological reports and in the mass media. After 1990, there is an increase in the number of reports over entire Europe, due to increased data collections efforts and increased public awareness.  

In my next posts, I will discuss in more details the early contributions to tornado research in Europe. If you are aware of any historical efforts on collecting and analysing tornado reports in your country I will be interested to here from you. 

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Tornadoes in Europe

We know that approximately 1000 tornadoes are observed each year in the United States, but how many tornadoes are observed each year in Europe?  As part of my current research project (funded by AXA Research Fund) and trying to provide an answer to this question in order to assess the threat of severe convective storms (those producing tornadoes, large hail, severe wind gusts and lightning) over Europe. 

Tornado databases are maintained by few European countries and thus is difficult to evaluate the number of tornadoes that occur each year in Europe. Recently, a new pan-European tornado database has become available that will allow a step-change in our ability to observe and understand tornadoes in Europe. Thus, in my research I am using tornado data from the European Severe Weather Database (ESWD), a unique database of severe-weather maintained by European Severe Storm Laboratory (ESSL). The ESWD is a joint effort between National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and voluntary observers. Also, the public can contribute with observations (submitting a severe weather report to ESWD is very easy and it takes around 5 min. and you can make a contribution to science).

Based on the data from ESWD, 2338 tornadoes were reported between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2013 in Europe (EU countries and Norway, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus and Turkey). Thus, approximately 233 tornadoes are observed each year in Europe. 

Next, we can ask what is the spatial distribution of tornadoes in Europe? To answer this question, I have plotted the annual average number of tornado per square kilometre at NUTS 3 level for EU countries and at the national level for non-EU countries (Fig. 1).  Thus, most of the tornadoes are reported over Northern and Central Europe.

Figure 1. The annual average number of tornadoes per square kilometres (shaded according to the scale) at NUTS 3 level for EU countries and at the national level for non-EU countries. (click on the image to explore the details) 

The spatial distribution of tornadoes in Fig. 1 depends not only on the meteorological factors associated with the tornado occurrence (e.g., Markowski and Richardson 2014)  but also on non-meteorological factors like the population density. Figure 2 shows the average population density between 2004 and 2013 for Europe based on the data from EUROSTAT.

Figure 2. The average population density (inhabitants per square kilometre, shaded according to the scale) between 2004 and 2013 based on the data from EUROSTAT. (click on the image to explore the details)

The high population density over Northern and Central Europe, Italy or United Kingdom may result in more tornadoes begin reported since more people are living in those areas. Thus, there is a population influence on tornado reports in Europe. In my next post I will discuss this influence and how to account for the population bias.