Winter storms
 

Is this supposed to be a joke? 170-200km/h (10-12). It's completely silent at this moment.
http://www.unwetterzentrale.de/uwz/index.html

It's the "Ruhe vor dem Sturm":

http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,460452,00.html

I'm afraid it's not a joke. I hope Hamburg is prepared this time.

Seems it's getting rough tomorrow.

Hey--what the heck is happening? I can't read a thing in German. Looks like Hurricane Katrina.

What's happening? I can't read German either.

My German is not great, but gale warning for almost the whole country. Worst storm in over 4 years and winds up to 150 kph.

Hello Germany!

Batton down the hatches! Get out your Gummistiefel! Where are those sandbags?

Hope this will blow over soon.

Gale force winds in Belgium and Holland too today. I wouldn't go near the coast today if you are here. Lots of rain too.

It started getting windy in our neck of the woods in the UK around 3 am and the winds are steadily increasing. I heard we will get gusts up to 100-120 kph, perhaps higher.

The forecast is appalling in England too.

It's supposed to snow here.

Snowing in Edinburgh but not much wind

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/...arnings.html?1

and

http://www.meteofrance.com/vigilance/index.html

Latest wind reading here is 50 mph. The neighbors have a large topiary cat on their garden wall that is really rocking about. Hope the winds die down before the cat pulls the wall down.

Makes you glad this wasn't happening a month ago...Christmas decorations would be flying all over the place! Fortunately, there are no large trees near us, but I do worry a little about the overhead power lines. Also power...already 25,000 people in Berkshire have lost their power. Although our winds are supposed to start dying down this afternoon...but apparently they'll be picking up speed in the north.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet in southern Australia, there hasn't been a decent day's rain in over three months. In the state of Victoria, bushfires have been raging since mid-December, and it was announced today that 20% of the state's area has been burnt. And the fires are yet to be controlled! So, if you can spare some of that European rain, it would be much appreciated!

There were 250 000 people without electricity in southern Sweden just two days ago. Three people died in the storm.

It's got its good side.

Quite a lot of trees have been falling down over the past week. So some on the edges of estates have brought fences or walls down with them.

I've just narrowly missed a whole family of deer (about a dozen of them) who'd meandered - in broad daylight - through one of these new gaps and were happily trying to eat their way through all the vegetation along what's normally a busy road. One look at the flannermobile and they got all shy again and ran back into the deerpark.

Oh, and Thames Water have finally lifted the hosepipe ban. I was beginning to get really worried we ought to be watering the lawn.

Blowing at 140 km/h on the nothern French coast. Ferry service suspended.

Parks and gardens in Paris all closed until further notice.

Its so bad here in Brussels I just rang my Insurance co. to make sure the house is covered for every eventuality!
I'm jusdt testing to see if I can editi stuff from last week! By the way, my roof did not blow off

logos999 and others---hope you are doing OK over there. How bad is the storm? Is it over?

I hasn't really started up to now in downtown Munich, no rain at all. You hear the whistling sound just now and then but it's not continuous. They say the maximun will be past midnight and it'll last for 3 hours. The Bahn has stopped operating, so quite many people are stranded.

It's been blowing like a banshee all day here in Stuttgart, but so far only a little rain, and it is relatively warm.

Turned into a nice day in Edinburgh - sunshine, light winds, clear skies. It made the fire alarm going off really worth while

Here in Zürich it's howling like crazy but warm and dry (until now). The bulk of the storm is supposed to come in the night.

My GF is worse off though - she is stuck in a train somewhere between Frankfurt and Basel. Deutsche Bahn just suspended all train traffic in Germany. The mobile phone connections are broken down too - either the antennas are torn off or there is too much calls - it is a bit scary.

It must take a lot to suspend all train traffic---I thought logos999 was referring to S-Bahns. I hope everyone is OK.

We lost cell phone communication here in our last windstorm, along with the electricity. It is indeed unnerving. Amazing how we come to depend on these.

I hope you hear from your GF soon, Altamiro.

Correct, all train traffic. It was announced in the late afternoon. But still just a "little windy" in Munich.

Thanks Enzian!

I am sure the only thing she is facing is an uncomfortable night sitting around in some train station... but still, some nervousness remains.

No need to be nervous, the THW is still there too. It could just be an uncomfortable night.

We have storm warnings for tonight in Lausanne but it was a relatively balmy day temperature-wise with light showers. I am from New England so don't mind a good storm once in a while!

Sigh,

I'm flying to Berlin exactly in a week's time, then travelling to 6 countries in Western europe, including Brussels (27th Jan) , Amsterdam (28th Jan). Unfortunately I've bought flight tickets, a railpass costing 350usd... All I think not refundable.

And all those reservations! Oh my. Hope it blows over/dies down by then.

I'm in Russia now, wind's blowing outside like crazy. And did I mention no snow? NO SNOW! Last year the temperature today was -25degree. It's around 5 degree out now...

What has the world come to?

>And all those reservations! Oh my. Hope it blows over/dies down by then.

A winter storm rarely lasts more than 24 hours. Don't worry, a week is enough time for another storm to build up :-)

(just joking)

No snow in the mountains here as well. I was skiing last weekend - hardly any snow in medium altitudes, and the little that was there at the top of the skiing area (well over 2000 m) was turning to slush in the noon already.

Here in Germany, just north of Wiesbaden, the wind is blowing hard and it's raining. We took the dogs out a little bit ago for a potty break and found that the wind had blown down our 20 foot tall apple tree. Snapped it right off mid-trunk. We knew it had some disease inside and were going to take it down in the spring anyway but I wanted to let it bloom one more time. At least it fell away from the house and into the yard! DH is happy because now he gets to use his chainsaw :)

Karlsruhe isn't too bad any more. Either the worst is over, or maybe this is just a rest and the storm will build up again during the night.

Deutsche Bahn has stopped most trains in the whole of Germany.

For those who are interested: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,...sch-335-rdf-mp

The glass facade of the new main train station in Berlin is severely damaged, threatens to fall down entirely.

Honestly? That's a relief... (In Kursk, Russia) I do not know wether this is the same storm blowing over there? A new storm brewing over here, over an entire new storm all together, but weather here last night was scary. Even now the wind's blowing read hard ( a wuuuuuuu.... a wuuuuu...) really scary, and it's dark. But no trees around here though, that's a relief too...

The official news bulletin from Deutsche Bahn is here: http://www.bahn.de/blitz/view/index.shtml (in German).

The information hotline they installed may be interesting for some: 08000-996633

On most routes the trains are running again but there are delays. Some routes are still closed (see list on page). They hope to be back to normal during the day.

I was nervous that our flight to dallas from Zurich on the 20th was going to be delayed but everything flying in that direction seemed to be on time. We were on a train with a man from Berlin who said all train service in all of Germany was shut down for a couple of days...glad my plans were elsewhere.

>We were on a train with a man from Berlin who said all train service in all of Germany was shut down for a couple of days...

Let's not overdo it. It was half a day.

I'm not over doing it, I'm repeating what a man said who happened to live there.

>I'm not over doing it, I'm repeating what a man said who happened to live there

Well, my GF happened to get stuck in the train between Frankfurt and Basel that night, so I know for how long the system was down.

Actually, according to the media, various train lines were reopened one by one, depending on how many trees were blocking them or electric lines were down. Your girlfriend was one of the lucky ones.