By Lavanya Lal, Y11
Storm Ciara, also known as Sabine, Elsa or Kade, has been spreading fear and panic across the European countries and the United Kingdom. First spotted on the 2nd of February this year, the fierce winds and heavy rains have already claimed 18 lives and caused 6bn euros worth of damage. Classified as a major destructive storm (3rd category), with wind speeds as high as 100 mph, storm Ciara has affected parts of mainland Europe including Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Ireland and Western parts of the United Kingdom.
On February 4th, the meteorological office, the national weather service, issued a warning for the newly formed storm along with several other meteorological institutes from Sweden, Ireland, and Austria. It is believed that the storm formed over a low-pressure patch in the Atlantic Ocean, near the South-eastern coast of the United States.
The storm caused heavy snowfalls of approximately 7 inches in Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri and Canada, and caused snowfalls of over a foot in England.
Storm Ciara was followed by storm Dennis which caused a second wave of flooding in the United Kingdom (UK), resulting in over 500 000 power outages. It also led to water shortages in over 35 000 homes in Austria, 90 000 homes in France and 5 000 homes in the UK.
Due to the storm, hundreds of flights were canceled, including 700 flights in Germany and 200 flights in the Netherlands. Several schools and colleges across all Europe and the United States were shut down, and several railways were shut down temporarily or had their speed limits imposed. Dutch authorities also reported a traffic jam 720 km long stretching across the country on the 10th of February.
All of these flight cancelations, led me to suspect that some people from our school may have had their vacation plans impacted. However, given that the effects of the storm had dimmed out last week, none of the people I talked to had any problems or disruptions in their travel plans.
