In the Late Afternoon the Adriatic Is Severely Stormy with Salty Seaspray that Saturates the Dark Air (1600 ISO, very little light); Vaia storm
29-october-2018: waves grew visibly, minute after minute, and they will reach the 6 meters in height less than 2 hours after (that is the maximum reachable in the upper Adriatic: force 6 of Douglas scale).
This stormy wind with a strong isobaric gradient, affected a large area of the Adriatic basin, the contiguous Dinaric Alps and the eastern Alpine Arch.
Nature was not (anymore?) Accustomed to a similar phenomenon and the damage is considerable, especially to the Spruce forests of the Dolomites and Carnia (Eastern Alps of Italy); but it is right to underline, besides the rarity of the event, especially within the Alps, also the fact that the split or uprooted trees (a huge number) were almost all Spruces (Picea abies/Picea excelsea) that for years suffer due to droughts, low snow and high temperatures, thus resulting in the most weakened by pests and lichens with the wind that was right for them more easily than it would have been 20 years ago. Other trees, less sensitive to climate change than Spruce trees (in need of deep wet and cool soils, now instead increasingly dry and warm), in fact, resisted.
In the Late Afternoon the Adriatic Is Severely Stormy with Salty Seaspray that Saturates the Dark Air (1600 ISO, very little light); Vaia storm
29-october-2018: waves grew visibly, minute after minute, and they will reach the 6 meters in height less than 2 hours after (that is the maximum reachable in the upper Adriatic: force 6 of Douglas scale).
This stormy wind with a strong isobaric gradient, affected a large area of the Adriatic basin, the contiguous Dinaric Alps and the eastern Alpine Arch.
Nature was not (anymore?) Accustomed to a similar phenomenon and the damage is considerable, especially to the Spruce forests of the Dolomites and Carnia (Eastern Alps of Italy); but it is right to underline, besides the rarity of the event, especially within the Alps, also the fact that the split or uprooted trees (a huge number) were almost all Spruces (Picea abies/Picea excelsea) that for years suffer due to droughts, low snow and high temperatures, thus resulting in the most weakened by pests and lichens with the wind that was right for them more easily than it would have been 20 years ago. Other trees, less sensitive to climate change than Spruce trees (in need of deep wet and cool soils, now instead increasingly dry and warm), in fact, resisted.