More Heavy Rainand a MedicaneAre Possible as Cyclone Numa Churns Near Greece -good read

[malaise]

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/more-heavy-rainand-medicaneare-possible-cyclone-numa-churns-near-greece
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At least 16 people died early Wednesday in Greece as major flash flooding tore through several towns on the northwest edge of the Athens metropolitan area. Mudslides poured through the region after torrential overnight rainfall, inundating roads with bright red-orange soil and tossing vehicles like toys. In the town of Nea Peramos, some 1000 homes were flooded, according to deputy major Stavros Fotiou. All of those reported killed by the floods were between ages 45 and 70, according to Greece’s national TV network ERT (as reported by the Guardian).

The heavy rains across Greece were associated with a large, cold upper low centered over Sicily on Wednesday. The storm has been dubbed Numa by the Free University of Berlin, whose vortex-naming practices have become the default choice for extratropical storms in Europe.

Cut off from the jet stream far to its north, Numa has been moving very slowly, weakening in place while pumping moist southerly flow into Greece. This moist air is pushing against the steep hillsides of the Balkan Peninsula, exacerbating the flood potential. The website Severe Weather Europe warned early Thursday that 48-hour rainfall amounts of 200-400 mm (8 – 16”) were possible in parts of central and northern Greece.

When the Atlantic hurricane season begins to quiet down in late October and November, it’s time to cast an eye toward the Mediterranean Sea for “medicanes”--a nickname for storms that develop tropical characteristics just off the coast of southern Europe. Medicanes aren’t considered full-fledged tropical systems, since the waters of the Mediterranean aren’t extensive or warm enough to sustain a true hurricane. And despite the implication embedded in the name, very few medicanes achieve sustained winds as strong as a Category 1 hurricane. However, it’s quite possible for an existing center of low pressure in the Mediterranean to briefly take on tropical characteristics, including a symmetric structure and a small core of warm air.

Numa could become a medicane over the next couple of days. Sea surface temperatures are only around 20°C, far too cool for classic hurricane development, but medicanes can still form over such waters if upper-level temperatures are cold enough to make the air unstable. Phase-space diagrams from Florida State University, based on GFS model output from early Thursday, suggested that Numa could briefly become a shallow, symmetric warm-core system. Such development would most likely happen on Friday or Saturday local time, as Numa carries out a tight cyclonic loop over the Ionian Sea just west of Greece.

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