Significant damage was caused to the coasts of the Balearic Islands and the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula (Pérez-Gómez et al., unpublished). From January 19th to 24th, the whole eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula suffered intense precipitation (up to 400 mm per day), accompanied by strong winds (mean values of 54 km/h and wind gusts of up to 140 km/h), a pronounced increase in the sea level (up to 0.6 m), record wave height that surpassed 8 m ( ICM-CSIC, 2020), and unusual wave mean periods (over 9 s). It passed over Northern Spain and stalled in the western Mediterranean for several days, with high winds and heavy rainfall. Exceptional Eastern winds originated in the Ligurian Sea and drove right into the Eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. It was driven by a strong North–South atmospheric pressure gradient, which was linked to a record breaking high atmospheric pressure system, of 1,050 hPa, over the British Islands. The Storm Gloria was formed in the North Atlantic, during mid-January 2020 ( Lopez-Bustins and Martin-Vide, 2020). Any future decisions would require a further understanding of what happened, as well as a robust early warning system. It toppled all present understanding of the wave climate in the Spanish Mediterranean. However, Storm Gloria, which took place in January of 2020, surpassed this event with unprecedented wave heights, wave periods, and storm duration. The coastal buoy of Tarragona, located at the entrance of the Tarragona Harbor, measured a maximum hourly significant wave height of 3.46 m. One of the most recent and most severe events, since buoy records started in 1985, occurred in November of 2001 ( Gómez et al., 2002). The Spanish Mediterranean coast registers about an average of 8 storms per year ( Puertos del Estado, 2017). These extreme phenomena drive complex hydrodynamic processes, whose understanding is paramount for proper infrastructure management, design, and maintenance ( Goda, 2010). Wave storms strongly hamper the activities in harbors. They analyze, in detail, other aspects of the event, including evolution of sea level and description of coastal damages.
#Square ocean waves series#
This work is the first of a series of papers to be published on this issue. The paper studies both how this storm fits into existing extreme analysis and how these should be modified in the light of this particular single event. It impacts all sorts of design activities at the coastline. Furthermore, it is demonstrated how a storm of this nature results in the need of changes on the extreme wave analysis for the area.
To do so, the wave forecast warning performance is analyzed, making special focus on the skill score for the different horizons. It prevents accidents that could result in fatal casualties. The work also demonstrates the relevance of the PORTUS System to warn, in advance, the main Spanish Ports.
The analysis also serves to place this storm in a historical context, showing the exceptional nature of the event, and to identify the specific reasons why its impact was particularly severe. It is by means of the study of both in situ and modeled PORTUS data, in combination with the AEMET weather forecast system results. The paper describes, in detail, the dynamic evolution of the atmospheric conditions, and the sea state during the storm. The present work shows how Gloria was correctly forecasted by this system, alerts were properly issued (with special focus to the ports), and the buoys were able to monitor the sea state conditions during the event, measuring several new records of significant wave height and exceptional high mean wave periods. Puertos del Estado (the Spanish holding of harbors) has developed and operates a complex monitoring and forecasting system (PORTUS System), in collaboration with the Spanish Met Office (AEMET). The event produced relevant damages on the coast and the infrastructures at the Catalan-Balearic Sea, due to extraordinary wind and wave fields, concomitant with anomalously intense rain and ocean currents.
Storm Gloria, generated on January 17th, 2020 in the Eastern North Atlantic, crossed the Iberian Peninsula and impacted the Western Mediterranean during the following days. 4Danish Meteorological Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark.3Agencia Estatal de Meteorología, Madrid, Spain.2Laboratorio de Ingeniería Marítima (LIM), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain.Isabel Ruiz 1, Begoña Pérez-Gómez 1 and Enrique Álvarez-Fanjul 1 Yolanda Luna 3, Daniel Santos-Muñoz 4, M. García-Valdecasas 1, Susana Pérez-Rubio 1, M. Marta de Alfonso 1*, Jue Lin-Ye 1,2, José M.
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