''Vivian'' was one of a series of severe

European windstorm European windstorms are powerful extratropical cyclones which form as cyclonic windstorms associated with areas of low atmospheric pressure. They can occur throughout the year, but are most frequent between October and March, with peak intensit ...

s in 1990. It struck large parts of Europe from 25 to 27 February 1990 and cost 64 people their lives. A few days later it was followed by '' windstorm Wiebke''. After

Hurricane Andrew Hurricane Andrew was a very powerful and destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that struck the Bahamas, Florida, and Louisiana in August 1992. It is the most destructive hurricane to ever hit Florida in terms of structures damaged ...

in 1992 (26.5 B USD), '' Cyclone Daria'' (known as ''

Burns' Day Storm The Burns' Day Storm (also known as Cyclone Daria) was an extremely violent windstorm that took place on 25–26 January 1990 over North-Western Europe. It is one of the strongest European windstorms on record. This storm has received different ...

'' in the UK) in January 1990 and '' Windstorm Lothar'' in 1999 (each costing c. B USD), and the Great Storm of 1987 (4.3 B USD) ''Vivian/Wiebke'' was one of the most expensive Atlantic storms in history, costing 4 B USD of insurance payments. In his report ''Winter storms in Europe - History from 1703 to 2012'' (''Winterstürme in Europa - Historie von 1703 bis 2012''), Aon Benfield assessed the cost of insurance payouts for storm damage in Germany as 1.5 billion euros.

Area

Apart from Germany (15 deaths), other countries affected badly were the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. In Hamburg there were several successive

storm surge A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the n ...

s. Thanks to the storms, the Rosenmontag parade in Düsseldorf was postponed until May, whilst in Cologne it went ahead with high safety precautions. Death toll: The fatalities are given as 64 persons, the damage is estimated as ca. 1.11 billion

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists o ...

Wiebke (storm)

* From 28 February to 1 March 1990 * In central Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) * Death toll: 35 persons * German version: Wiebke (storm) Wiebke

Particularly in mountain regions, a large number of trees were damaged. (Even complete

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...

and

beech Beech (''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia, and North America. Recent classifications recognize 10 to 13 species in two distinct subgenera, ''Engleriana'' and ''Fagus''. The ''Engle ...

stands/forests). Hundreds of trees were bent or thrown like matches. Extrapolations go of 60 to 70 million cubic meters of extra "cut" wood by the storm, which corresponded to about twice the annual harvesting in Germany.

References

External links

DWD, Extreme Wetter- und Witterungsereignisse im 20. Jahrhundert
(pdf file; 412 kB) * (pdf file; 2,30 MB)
''Wie viel "Störung" verträgt der Wald?''
Text und Audio zu einer Langzeitstudie der Eidgenössischen Forschungsanstalt für Wald, Schnee und Landschaft über die Folgen von ''Vivian''.. {{Authority control

Vivian Vivian may refer to: *Vivian (name), a given name and also a surname Toponyms * Vivian, Louisiana, U.S. * Vivian, South Dakota, U.S. * Vivian, West Virginia, U.S. * Vivian Island, Nunavut, Canada * Ballantrae, Ontario, a hamlet in Stouffville, ...

1990 natural disasters