ADRIATIC METEOTSUNAMI CATALOGUE

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(28) Stari Grad, 9 July 2019

Figure 1. Synoptic situation at the time of the event: (left) mean sea level pressure and 10-m wind; (middle) temperature and wind at 850 hPa; (right) geopotential height and wind at 500 hPa.

According to the atmospheric measurements done over the middle Adriatic, the event was generated by a pronounced air pressure disturbance, characterized by a min-to-max height of 3.6 hPa, maximum rate of air pressure change of -1.7 hPa/5 min, and a total duration of approximately 1 hour. The atmospheric disturbance propagated across
the Adriatic from the Italian (Ancona, Vieste) towards the Croatian (Vis, Stari Grad) coast traversing Stari Grad between 18:15 and 19:15 UTC. Onset of high-frequency sea-level oscillations was simultaneous to the arrival of the air pressure disturbance, with the sea-level oscillations enduring for almost a day. The most pronounced sea wave had a height of 105.3 cm at the tide-gauge site. It reached its maximum height of 47.3 cm at 18:31 UTC, and its minimum height of -58.0 cm at 18:47 UTC. A period of sea-level oscillations was 20-30 min. The maximum total sea level of 57.5 cm was recorded at the same time as the maximum of the meteotsunami wave, i.e. at 18:31 UTC, with most of the recorded height related to the contribution of the meteotsunami wave. The 9 July 2019 event is also discussed in Denamiel et al. (2019b), in which it is used as one of the test cases for validation of the meteotsunami module of a real-time one-way coupled atmosphere-ocean AdriSC model. 

Event is also described in an online article (Dalmacija Danas, 9 July 2019) where it is said that the sea retreated for more than a meter in around 10 minutes.  

Synoptic analysis reveals that a field of slightly lowered mean sea level pressure was positioned over the Adriatic. At the 850 hPa height, a warm air mass was advancing from the western Sahara across the western Mediterranean towards the Adriatic Sea. At the 500 hPa height, strong westerly to north-westerly winds, associated to an upper level ridge, blew over the middle Adriatic.

Figure 2. Original and high-pass (T < 4h) sea-level time series, and high-pass filtered (T < 4 h) air pressure time series, all measured at Stari Grad during Event 28.

Authorship and copyright

The first version of this online catalogue had been taken over from a paper published by Mirko Orlić (The first attempt at cataloguing tsunami-like waves of meteorological origin in Croatian coastal waters, Acta Adriatica, 56, 2015, 83-95). The online version was built by Jadranka Šepić and Mirko Orlić, and was hosted by the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries from 2017 till 2022. 

Present version of the catalogue has been built by Jadranka Šepić and Mirko Orlić, with support of Hrvoje Mihanović (Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, Split), Iva Međugorac  and Iva Vrkić (both from Department of Geophysics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb).  Catalogue is regularly updated, by taking into account and scrutinizing the additional information as it becomes available.

Contact

Jadranka Šepić
Faculty of Science, University of Split

jadranka.sepic@pmfst.hr

Useful links

SHExtreme project

StVar-Adri project

POZOR project

MESSI project

IOF sea level and air pressure measurements

 

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