Climatological analysis of windstorm from November 2004 and evaluation of its impacts on meso- and microclimatic conditions in the High Tatras Region

On Friday, November 19th, 2004, a violent windstorm of wasting force hit the High Tatras’forest scrubs. The landscape pattern of the 50 km long and 2.5 km wide area became completely changed by rare meteorological phenomena (the total area of devastated forest scrub was about 12,000 hectares). The forest scrub pattern has been dramatically changed whereby the connected and coherent spruce scrubs at the age between 40 and 110 years have been replaced by the low, mainly meadow vegetation. It is highly probable the radical surface change might have resulted in modification of meso- and microclimatic conditions of the affected region. Apart from this fact, an impact of expected meso- and microclimatic condition changes on regional climate could modify the atmospheric component of the High Tatras environment. For the purpose of identification and quantification of significant scrub change-induced meso-climatic signal, we are dealing with statistical analysis of selected meteorological component time series (air temperature, air humidity, precipitation, wind speed, cloudiness, as well as sunshine duration and snow cover characteristics) at representative climatological stations (Poprad, Štrbské Pleso, Tatranská Lomnica, Stará Lesná, Oravská Lesná, Liptovský Hrádok, etc.) within the 1951–2007 and 1961–2007 period. However, we have not been able to validate any significant changes in air temperature, relative humidity and precipitation regime in the meso-scale climate conditions. Some relevant microclimate modifications of heat and moisture fluxes have been found, according to microclimate monitoring results presented in Matejka & Hurtalová (2008).