Northern Europe to be Bertha’s final destination

Bertha is now an extratropical storm, meaning the former hurricane has lost its tropical characteristics and resembles a more typical storm system that arrives reaches Europe from the northern Atlantic.

The window for Bertha’s projected path into Europe for late in the weekend lies from Scotland to the Brittany region of France.

“The most likely scenario is for Bertha to move through the English Channel,” stated AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Evan Duffey.

Bertha will then track to Norway early next week as it gets absorbed by a large-scale storm system churning north of Great Britain. Along its path through northern Europe, Bertha will produce a period of rain and breezy to windy conditions.

Powerful extratropical storms that originate from the tropical Atlantic can slam into northern Europe with widespread heavy rain and damaging winds. Fortunately, Bertha will not be such a storm. Its wind is not expected to cause damage and the main impact of the rain will be to disrupt outdoor plans.

“Bertha will actually get lost in the crowd when it comes to storms [across Europe] this week,” added Duffey.

Bertha’s impacts will generally be no worse or possibly even less than the non-named and non-tropical system it is being preceded by. This storm is set to spread rain, some heavy, from England and France to Norway Friday through the weekend. Even a couple of thunderstorms will rumble.

Where this storm drops heavy rain, the additional rain from Bertha could lead to flash flooding problems. Duffey feels that is especially true across Brittany and Norway.

“Runoff from heavy rain does not drain well across Brittany, so watch for flooding to develop, including along the La Loire River.”

Meanwhile, Norway is in the midst of a wetter than normal start to August.

Oslo picked up 70.4 mm (2.77 inches) of rain during the first five days of August, which is nearly 75 percent of what typically falls through the entire month.