Strong polar vortex favoured intense Northern European storminess in February 2022
Williams, Ryan S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3185-3909; Maycock, Amanda C.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6614-1127; Charnay, Vincent; Knight, Jeff
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1868-0852; Polichtchouk, Inna.
2025
Strong polar vortex favoured intense Northern European storminess in February 2022.
Communications Earth & Environment, 6 (226).
10.1038/s43247-025-02175-7
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© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. s43247-025-02175-7.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (3MB) | Preview |
Abstract/Summary
February 2022 was an unusually stormy month over Northern Europe, including three extratropical cyclones impacting the United Kingdom and Ireland within a single week. The month also experienced an exceptionally strong stratospheric polar vortex; however, the role of this in preconditioning the risk of extratropical cyclone hazards has not been explored. Here we use constrained subseasonal forecasts to isolate the effect of the strong stratospheric polar vortex on the North Atlantic storm track in February 2022. We estimate the strong polar vortex led to a 1.5-3-fold increase in the likelihood of a cyclone with comparable intensity to the most intense storm that impacted the United Kingdom. We also show an increased likelihood of 3 or more storms reaching the United Kingdom in a single week by ~80% compared to if the polar vortex had been of average intensity. Using a storm severity index, we estimate a 3-4-fold increase in wind gust hazards over Scandinavia and Scotland and increases in monthly precipitation over Scotland, northern England and Ireland, and Scandinavia. The results show that the strengthened stratospheric polar vortex enhanced the risk of extreme North Atlantic extratropical cyclones, serial cyclone clustering, and their associated impacts over northern Europe in February 2022.
Item Type: | Publication - Article |
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Digital Object Identifier (DOI): | 10.1038/s43247-025-02175-7 |
ISSN: | 2662-4435 |
Date made live: | 04 Apr 2025 09:06 +0 (UTC) |
URI: | https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/539213 |
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