Storm over the Aegean

The meteorological bulletins broadcast by the maritime safety stations in Heraklion and Rhodes had taken on a tone of grim, escalating urgency by midday. A rare, violent Mediterranean cyclone—formed by an anomalous collision of cold Siberian air plunging south over the Balkans and superheated thermal currents rising from the North African desert—was rotating directly over the Cyclades. The barometric pressure was plummeting at a rate unseen in forty years, whipping…