The JRC storm surge calculation system : application to the Xaver extra tropical cyclone event

The Xaver storm affected in the first days of December 2013 (4th -7th) several Nordic countries, causing inundation and damages along its path. Severe storm alerts have been issued some days in advance by various European Meteorological Institutes indicating the possibility of large inundation of coastal areas. This report describes the calculations that have been performed online during the passage of the Xaver storm. These calculations are part of a new development performed at JRC in order to be able to estimate tropical cyclones and extra tropical cyclones adopting worldwide pressure and wind speed estimations obtained by the European Center for Medium Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) as boundary conditions to the hydraulic calculations.