page_title: European windstorm
section_title: Name of phenomena
hierarchical_section_title: European windstorm / Nomenclature / Name of phenomena
caption_attribution_description: English: Intense Cyclone Ulli situated to the north-east of Scotland.
context_page_description: 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 intensity in the winter months. Deep areas of low pressure are common over the North Atlantic, and occasionally start as nor'easters off the New England coast. They frequently track across the North Atlantic Ocean towards the north of Scotland and into the Norwegian Sea, which generally minimizes the impact to inland areas; however, if the track is further south, it may cause adverse weather conditions across Central Europe, Northern Europe and especially Western Europe. The countries most commonly affected include the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland.
  The strong wind phenomena intrinsic to European windstorms, that give rise to "damage footprints" at the surface, can be placed into three categories, namely the "warm jet", the "cold jet" and the "sting jet".
context_section_description: Several European languages use cognates of the word huracán (ouragan, uragano, orkan, huragan, orkaan, ураган, which may or may not be differentiated from tropical hurricanes in these languages) to indicate particularly strong cyclonic winds occurring in Europe. The term hurricane as applied to these storms is not in reference to the structurally different tropical cyclone of the same name, but to the hurricane strength of the wind on the Beaufort scale (winds ≥ 118 km/h or ≥ 73 mph).
  In English, use of term hurricane to refer to European windstorms is mostly discouraged, as these storms do not display the structure of tropical storms. Likewise the use of the French term ouragan is similarly discouraged as hurricane is in English, as it is typically reserved for tropical storms only. European windstorms in Latin Europe are generally referred to by derivatives of tempestas (tempest, tempête, tempestado, tempesta), meaning storm, weather, or season, from the Latin tempus, meaning time.
  Globally storms of this type forming between 30° and 60° latitude are known as extratropical cyclones. The name European windstorm reflects that these storms in Europe are primarily notable for their strong winds and associated damage, which can span several nations on the continent. The strongest cyclones are called windstorms within academia and the insurance industry. The name European windstorm has not been adopted by the UK Met Office in broadcasts (though it is used in their academic research), the media or by the general public, and appears to have gained currency in academic and insurance circles as a linguistic and terminologically neutral name for the phenomena.
  In contrast to some other European nations there is a lack of a widely accepted name for these storms in English. The Met Office and UK media generally refer to these storms as severe gales. The current definition of severe gales (which warrants the issue of a weather warning) are repeated gusts of 70 mph (110 km/h) or more over inland areas. European windstorms are also described in forecasts variously as winter storms, winter lows, autumnal lows, Atlantic lows and cyclonic systems. They are also sometimes referred to as bullseye isobars and dartboard lows in reference to their appearance on weather charts. A Royal Society exhibition has used the name European cyclones, with North-Atlantic cyclone and North-Atlantic windstorms also being used. Though with the advent of the "Name our Storms" project, they are generally known as storms.
caption: Satellite picture of Cyclone Ulli on January 3 2012
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