On November 16, 2013, Storm Hilde reached the southern part of Lappland and the border of Jämtland. A new Swedish wind record was noted at Stekenjokk with an average wind speed of 47.0 m/s and a gust speed of 56.3 m/s. Hilde is classified as a less intense storm compared to Storm Ivar, which affected Sweden on December 12, 2013. Ivar caused extensive damage in Jämtland and recorded a wind speed of 46.0 m/s at Blåhammaren. Since these two storms occurred within a month of each other and had overlapping storm areas, a combined analysis of both storms was conducted. The results of this analysis were then compared with the calculations by the Swedish Forest Agency, which reported that 11.5 million cubic meters of forest were felled, with approximately 90% consisting of pine trees.

The purpose of this study is to use satellite imagery to analyze the extent of storm-felled forest after the Hilde and Ivar storms. This will be done through a change analysis using supervised Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC) of Landsat 8 satellite images collected in 2013 and 2014. Additionally, the study aims to investigate whether tree height has an impact on the proportion of storm-felled forest. Finally, an analysis of the reforested forest up to the year 2023 will be included.

The results of the analyses indicate that Hilde and Ivar together resulted in 13.9 million cubic meters of storm-felled forest, with 78% of the felled forest consisting of pine trees. The reforestation by 2023 is estimated to be approximately 16%. A thorough assessment of the results shows that they are generally high, but there are some discrepancies compared to the estimations by the Swedish Forest Agency. The reason for these differences is not fully clarified as the Swedish Forest Agency did not disclose their methodology. One possible explanation could be differences in the satellite images used and the analyses conducted.