Predictability of extreme meteo-oceanographic events in the Adriatic Sea

The performance of state-of-the-art meteorological and oceanographic numerical systems in predicting the sea state in the Adriatic Sea during intense storms is assessed. Two major storms that affected Venice are discussed. The first storm occurred on 4 November 1966, when Venice suffered its most dramatic flood event. The damage and loss of life caused by the storm and the associated flood were extremely high also because the event was poorly forecast. The 1966 event is reanalysed using state-of-the-art meteorological and oceanographic numerical systems to investigate whether the poor forecast quality was due to a lack of data or of suitable numerical modelling. The second severe storm took place on 22 December 1979, when Venice experienced the second-worst 'acqua-alta' conditions in recorded history. Results show that with the present numerical systems both storms and associated wave and surge conditions could have been forecast several days in advance. Potential implications for the prediction of more frequent less intense storms are discussed, and a suitably enhanced system based on a global meteorological model and a limited area one is outlined.