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The transition from late summer to autumn always brings surprises throughout the Adriatic region in the form of sudden storms with heavy rain, storm, lightning and thunder. Also on the last weekend, October 3, 2020, summer said goodbye with a bang: thunderstorms, rain and a strong Jugo pushed the waters of the Mediterranean Sea to the north. Lignano reported the...
Read moreJust in time for the start of the main tourist season, the weather in Croatia should show itself from its best side, according to meteorologists: Temperatures of 35 degrees and more are announced, at night the thermometer hardly falls below 20 degrees. In addition, if the forecasts are to be believed, there should be little wind and swell. Croatia's weathermen...
Read moreNaturally, you should always expect predictable, but also unforeseeable, short-term weather changes such as storms, heavy rain or thunderstorms on the Adriatic Sea in the area of Croatia. That's why SeaHelp has integrated the "Weather Warning" function in the free SeaHelp app for iOS and Android devices, which alerts users to such weather phenomena via push message. In addition, the...
Read moreA moderate storm that swept over large parts of the Croatian coast in the night from July 6 to 7, 2020 caused the first large-scale deployment of SeaHelp emergency response boats. It was not until the morning of July 7th that the full extent of the damage became apparent, with a total of eight salvages on the deployment schedule of...
Read moreVenice has experienced what is considered the worst flooding in 50 years, on the Adriatic coast in northern Italy the marinas in Lignano report ”land submerged‟ and even in Croatia it must be recognised that the water level is clearly above ”normal‟ which means 30 to 50 centimetres more than normal. Are they indeed suffering the consequences of the climate...
Read moreYear after year, so it seems, the autumn storms bring the water into the marinas of Lignano on the Adriatic coast in northern Italy. Here, people have got used by now the this autumnal natural phenomenon, so any serious damages could be avoided so far. However, this was not the case during the night of the 12th to the 13th...
Read moreThe Croatian coastline is 1,777 kilometres long and adding the 1,185 islands, it totals to more than 6,000 kilometres of coastline, according to official measurements. Even relatively unexperienced skippers should be aware that, especially during the summer months, severe local storms might approach all of a sudden, in no way predictable when watching the daily weather report in the morning....
Read moreThe last thunderstorm, which swept across the Croatian coast from Istria to Dalmatia on Sunday evening, 7 July 2019, was not necessarily marked by record wind speeds in many regions, but came literally out of the blue. A skipper who was right in the middle of the action: "There was the best bathing weather, suddenly we heard a roll of...
Read moreThe Adriatic region has been hit by hurricane-like autumn storms and heavy rains in recent days. Dubrovnik and Zadar struggled with record-breaking rainfall that hit the region in a few hours. At the same time the Yugo pushed the water towards the mainland. Motorways were blocked around Rijeka, the old coastal road was partially no longer passable. The ferry traffic...
Read moreThe balance of the thunderstorm front on the previously so contemplative Sunday evening: A total of 24 operations in a short period of time kept the forces between Istria and Dubrovnik on their toes. Eleven violent groundings, during which the boats had to be salvaged, two free towing operations with light grounding, five towing operations to the next port, two start-up assistance and four general assistance operations were recorded late at night in the operation protocol of SeaHelp headquarters in Punat. The term \"general assistance\" should not be underestimated in terms of the effort involved. In a more than irresponsible situation, an adult with six small children had ventured out from a campsite with an (inflatable) rubber boat into the Adriatic Sea despite a thunderstorm warning and was considered missing. SAR, captainry and SeaHelp participated in the search. Luckily it ended without any trouble, the maritime \"Assumption Command\" had made it ashore under their own power.<\/p>\r\n
SeaHelp had already issued a storm warning early on via the app, warning of thunderstorms and squalls of 35 to 40 kt. \"Obviously the warnings were ignored in view of the beautiful weather,\" a SeaHelp employee suspected.<\/p>\r\n
Already at 7 pm the storm front reached Istria. A team from the Mali Losinj base, which went out for support, had a more than arduous way back: \"Waves as high as houses!\" Stanko Kovacevic reported to the control center, more than three knots top speed was hardly possible. But SeaHelp's emergency crews and powerful rescue boats can handle situations like this.<\/p>\r\n
One more thing was noticeable: SeaHelp had only recently explicitly advised on the Internet that anchor buoys or anchors should be checked to make sure they were firmly anchored. Obviously not emphatically enough, because the majority of the boats damaged during this storm weekend were drifted ashore because the lines of the anchor buoys broke or did not hold anchors.<\/p>\r\n
In addition, this storm Sunday showed once again how important it is to have a SeaHelp membership. 22 assignments were driven for SeaHelp members, only two assignments were for non-members. At the end of the day, this is not only a question of costs, but also a question of costs: According to the General Terms and Conditions, SeaHelp members understandably enjoy priority treatment over non-members for missions of equal rank and pay nothing or significantly less for certain services.<\/p>\r\n