Bakker Bugle Blog

In Luxembourg-Ville this morning, the air is filled with the sound of chainsaws as crews clean up debris from yesterday’s storm.

We spent all day Sunday marveling at the fierce, steady winds and violent gusts that battered our apartment. We didn’t know if it was just an ordinary spring storm, experienced from a fourth-floor apartment, or something else. Since we didn’t venture out, the worst we saw were up-ended satellite dishes, some flying tree branches, and a few trashcans blown over. From our perspective, it was as threatening as a bad summertime storm in Chicago, without the lashing rain or thunder, but also with damaging winds for a much longer period.

We woke up this morning to a news report on Radio ARA that named the storm “Xynthia” and listed dozens of closed roads all over Luxembourg.

Roads were blocked in over 50 different places over the week-end as the storm depression Xynthia brought gale force winds to Luxembourg. The rescue services were called out on over 750 occasions as the storm wreaked havoc in the Grand Duchy. Flights from Findel Airport were also disrupted by the high winds, which were at times very close to hurricane levels, topping out at 110 km/h. 15 hikers who had ignored warnings to stay indoors had to be rescued from the woods. 4 people have been injured by flying debris. And the Sûre river in Diekirch has risen above critical levels.

Now we know that the storm was quite serious indeed, especially in western France.

From news sources:

• BBC report, photo gallery
• BBC’s collection of reports on the ground
• Overview from Boston Globe
• German coverage

For fans of weather images:

• Large still image of Xynthia
• Video of Xynthia’s approach on YouTube
• Time-lapse of Xynthia over Europe

The damage and loss of life doesn’t approach the recent disasters in Chile, Madeira and Haiti. We’re mentioning the storm for its local interest alone.