Analysis of weather factors responsible for the traffic ‘Black Day’ in Helsinki, Finland, on 17 March 2005

Meteorological applications

article

Ilkka Juga¹  Marjo Hippi¹  Dmitri Moisseev²  Elena Saltikoff¹ 

[1] Finnish Meteorological Institute, Meteorological Research;Department of Physics, University of Helsinki

关键词: winter weather;    intense snowfall;    poor visibility;    car pile-ups;    freezing drizzle;    dual-polarization radar;   

DOI  :  10.1002/met.238

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

During the morning rush hours of 17 March 2005, a band of intense snowfall affected the Helsinki metropolitan area in southern Finland. The event caused severe pile-ups on the highways, with almost 300 crashed cars, the deaths of three people and more than 60 people injured. The snowfall was soon followed by freezing drizzle. Some of the media later blamed this as being responsible for the unprecedented number and severity of the accidents that had occurred. However, the official inquiry came to the conclusion that the pile-ups had been caused by the very poor visibility due to intense snowfall and excessive driving speeds combined with reduced road surface friction. In this study, these two viewpoints are investigated, by using high time-resolution dual-polarization radar observations to analyse the changes in intensity and form of the precipitation leading to the event. The radar data were particularly useful in supplementing weather observations.

【 授权许可】

CC BY|CC BY-NC|CC BY-NC-ND