MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Bloomberg — “The storm Dagmar lashed the Nordic countries with Hurricane-strength winds, cutting power and Norwegian natural-gas exports as it damaged buildings, shut roads and halted train traffic.

About 264,500 homes in Finland, Sweden and Norway were without electricity as utilities such as Vattenfall AB worked to restore power after the storm yesterday toppled trees and damaged lines, according to estimates today by companies and grid operators.

In Finland, the number of those blacked out has increased as winds have picked up again, leaving 190,500 customers at Fortum Oyj, Vattenfall and Savon Voima Oyj without electricity, the utilities said. Some failures may last for days, Fortum said. In Sweden, about 44,000 homes were without power as of 2:33 p.m., according to a compilation from the three-largest utilities, including Vattenfall and EON AG.

The storm is causing the worst outages since the Janika storm in November 2001, said Heini Kuusela-Opas, a spokeswoman for Vattenfall in Finland, by phone today…

About 30,000 homes were without power in Norway as of 2 p.m., grid operator Statnett SF said in a statement. Statoil ASA, Norway’s largest oil company, reduced staffing on its offshore oil platforms over the weekend while maintaining production, Stavanger Aftenblad reported yesterday, citing Baard Glad Pedersen, a company spokesman.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Ormen Lange natural gas field was operating at 50 megawatt power out of a capacity of 200 megawatts, the Nord Pool power exchange said late yesterday in a statement, citing grid disruptions. A Shell spokesman, who declined to be identified by name, said by phone today that the company is now increasing gas exports after a halt.

The highest average wind measured in Norway was 44.6 meters per second (100 miles per hour), with gusts reaching 64.7 meters per second, Norway’s Meteorological Institute said. All measuring stations had winds peaking at more than 32 meters per second, or hurricane strength, the institute said. Gusts exceeded 30 meters per second at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport yesterday, the Finnish Meteorological Institute said…

Finns in the southeastern and southern parts of the country, including the capital Helsinki, were told by the police to stay indoors during the storm. In Sweden, train traffic in the middle and northern parts of the country was halted and smaller, local roads were temporarily closed.” Read more.

Third storm threatens to sweep through Finland next week – “Very warm air masses spreading into Finland from the east could cause a new storm next week. According to duty meteorologist Henri Nyman from the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the Eastern districts of Finland will be most at risk from thunderstorms. ‘Locally lightning may be substantial already at the weekend, but the risk of a heavier storm will grow by Monday’, Nyman predicts. The risk of thunderstorms is a consequence of the weather conditions that have remained unchanged for a long time. Thunderstoms can form and develop when the warm air from the east and southeast collides with the cooler western air masses. ‘According to the forecast, a low-pressure zone will be created in the frontier between the warm and cool air masses at the weekend, concomitant with strengthening winds and possibly dangerous thunderstorms’, Nyman reports. On average, powerful thunderstorms like the ‘Asta’ and ‘Veera’ examples that swept over Finland last Wednesday and a week ago occur in Finland only a few times in a decade.” Read more.