【2019 Archives】

Severe weather has been hammering parts of the south central Mediterranean this week019 Archives with heavy snow falling in the Alps, torrential rains in lower elevations along with powerful winds, and high waves affecting Italy, in particular.

Deadly flash flooding has also occurred in Greece, as the low pressure area sitting to that country's west vaults moisture northward around its eastern periphery. The storm system responsible for this inclement weather is just getting started, however.

Computer models show the storm will become a small but powerful hybrid system with some of the characteristics of a tropical cyclone typically found in the North Atlantic Ocean Basin.

Such storms, known as "medicanes," are relatively rare, but not unheard of. The storm is expected to move south and east of Italy through Thursday while intensifying, and then hug the coast of Greece, where it could bring damaging winds, heavy rain, high waves, and other hazards.

By late this week and into the weekend, the storm -- be it a purely tropical system or a hybrid storm -- will be located just southwest of the Greek coast, with heavy rain and severe thunderstorms affecting that country.

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During the Thursday through Saturday period, the low pressure area is forecast to move southeast of Italy, and to the west of Greece, while becoming better organized. Low atmospheric wind shear (meaning winds won't change much in direction or speed with height), is forecast for that area, and ocean surface temperatures are relatively mild.

Computer model projections show a small, closed circulation system that could have subtropical to tropical characteristics, with a ring of thunderstorms and strong winds surrounding a calmer inner core.

When tropical systems, either subtropical or fully tropical, occur in the Mediterranean, they are usually much smaller in area than their cousins in the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans, and there's actually some scientific debate over how to classify them in the first place.

The structure of a storm matters because it governs how such storms may affect areas that they hit. Interestingly, medicanes typically occur during October and November, which is at the tail end of the Atlantic hurricane season.

A medicane in 2014 struck Malta, bringing winds of up to 154 kilometers per hour, or 95 miles per hour. This was strong enough to knock out power, disrupt air and ferry travel, and cause other damage in three countries, according to the European satellite agency EUMETSAT.

Regardless of whether this will truly become a medicane -- a wet and wild few days is in store for Greece, and subsequently for Bulgaria and Turkey as well.