February 2022 witnessed unprecedented winter storms in the UK and Ireland, causing fatalities and widespread power outages. Named Dudley, Eunice, and Franklin, these storms marked the first instance of three named storms occurring in a single week since the storm-naming protocol began in 2015. Research from the University of Leeds identified a strong stratospheric polar vortex as a significant contributor, making similar storm clusters substantially more likely, especially with climate change potentially enhancing storm severity in the future.
Our research demonstrates the need to better understand the different drivers of the North Atlantic storm track, such as the state of the stratospheric polar vortex that is potentially predictable several weeks in advance.
Such a strong SPV increased the likelihood of three or more storms reaching the UK in a single week by around 80 percent compared to when the SPV was normal.
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