The first day after Christmas in Norway was not a merry one by any means of the imagination after the extreme weather system ‘Urd’ reached hurricane strength and hit the Norwegian coast.
On Monday, December 26, 2016, the storm hit several locations in the country, leaving 70,000 Norwegians without power in its wake with the brunt of it striking southern Norway.
Offshore oil and gas platforms were not spared either.
Namely, a video has been released showing heavy waves hitting the Oseberg platform in the Norwegian part of the North Sea just after Christmas.
The video, released on Youtube by the Norwegian news website Dagbladet, was recorded by Tommy Larsen of Statoil on December 26. It has so far attracted almost 60.000 views.
The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate and the Meteorological Institute stated that the hurricane-strength winds peaked at 45 meters per second (162 km/h).
This was not the first extreme weather situation in Norway during 2016 as the hurricane Tor had hit the region in January 2016, canceling and delaying dozens of offshore flights in Norway.
Offshore Energy Today Staff