While a large collection of historical documents precisely exposing storms’ societal and economic impacts is available, sedimentological records of millennium storms are still less documented in this area. However, they mainly focus on Holocene storm phases or post nineteenth century storms. Several sedimentological palaeostorm studies have already been conducted on the central European coast 16– 20. Sedimentological data are primarily used in storm research to expose environmental disturbances of Storm Events (StE) that occurred during the last millennium 7, 15. This paper reviews storm impacts recorded on central European coasts many of which have been largely studied by historians, thanks to an extensive and high-quality regional archive collection 8– 14.

These storm phases have deeply impacted their environments, coastal societies and the area’s past economic activity. The most impacting storms studied can testify to notable ancient phases of high extreme storm activity. They give us valuable information on past storm dynamics, including their relation with various climatological mechanisms, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) or temperature variation 5– 7. Historical and sedimentological data are used to understand centuries-old historical storm trends, thus extending this analysis’s timescale. These studies are mainly based on isotopic temperature evolution or oceanological and climatological modelling. Data studying recent storms have proved that anthropogenic warming has impacted extratropical storm activity or trajectories in the North Atlantic Ocean 3, 4. Reconstructing extreme storm history is a methodological challenge of importance in order to understand climate change 1, 2.

Anno 1404 stone deposit