Storminess in northern Italy and the Adriatic Sea reaching back to 1760

This study investigates storminess in northern Italy and the northern Adriatic Sea through the examination of several storm proxies. These proxies are based on homogenized daily mean pressure series given at a set of stations (Genoa, Milan, Padua, Turin, and Hvar). The application of widely accepted and well-known methods on pressure series allows for a long-term year-to-year analysis of the intra-seasonal storm variability. As storminess is usually more intense throughout the cold season, our analysis is limited to the October-March period of each year. The following proxies are considered in this study: First, we assess the statistics of geostrophic wind speed. These statistics are derived from two adjacent triangles that are located across the Adriatic Sea (Padua-Hvar-Genoa) and in northern Italy (Genoa-Padua-Turin). Second, we evaluate annual statistics of time series of pressure tendency. Last, intra-seasonal low percentiles of pressure are also made use of. These proxies are used to describe the evolution of the storm climate far back in time, covering in some cases a 260-year long period. The proxies show pronounced interannual and interdecadal variability, but no sustained long-term trend. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.