A slow-moving storm triggered days of intense rainfall across central and eastern Europe in September 2024.
A slow-moving storm triggered days of intense rainfall across central and eastern Europe in September 2024. The deluge submerged entire neighborhoods and forced tens of thousands to evacuate flooded towns and cities.
Between September 11 and 18, a low-pressure storm system battered parts of Austria, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic (Czechia) with torrential rainfall. The storm formed when a wave of cold Arctic air plunged into southern Europe and met with warm, moist air from the Mediterranean. The low-pressure system became cut off from the prevailing jet stream (known as a cut-off low), allowing it to linger in the region for several days.
Named Storm Boris by the UK Met Office, the system hit hardest in the Czech Republic and Austria, which in one week saw up to three times the amount of rainfall typical for the entire month of September, according to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. In eastern Austria, near Vienna, 215 millimeters (8.5 inches) of rain fell during that week. All of this rainfall, however, had consequences beyond the hardest-hit areas.
Read more at NASA Earth Observatory
Image: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
