The storm that battered Scotland yesterday will set off a huge storm surge down the North Sea today. Flood warnings have been issued for the coast of East Anglia, although the larger threats will face the North Sea coasts of Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands.

Fierce winds gusted up to 174km/h (108mph) and brought mayhem across northern Scotland, although this was not an unusually intense storm for the region.

Although the worst of the storm has moved across to Scandinavia, it has left a dangerous legacy. Strong northerly winds dragged down along the rear of the depression are aimed straight down the North Sea, causing a spectacular storm surge.

This vast bulge of seawater is whipped up by the storm’s winds and low barometric pressure, and raises sea levels to dangerous heights. As the storm surge is rammed southwards down the North Sea it rises higher in a bottleneck formed between the coastlines of eastern Britain and the Continent. The seabed also becomes shallower there, raising seas higher. According to the Met Office, today’s highest sea levels could reach more than 3m (10ft), with possibly another 20cm added on for high waves. However, adequate warning of the surge was given four days ago using a new forecasting model that gives probabilities of how severe the high tides could be.

There were fears that a spring tide today could lead to catastrophic flooding if it combined with the storm surge. By sheer luck, though, the worst of the surge should come around 9am to 11am and miss the high tides. However, lowlying areas of the East Anglian coast such as the Norfolk Broads are on flood warnings, and Felixtowe is expecting its highest tide for 24 years.

The effects will also be felt in the Thames Estuary, where the highest water levels for 50 years will strike. The Thames Barrier should easily contain the high waters and prevent London flooding. The North Sea coasts of Denmark, Germany and the northwest Netherlands are braced for a far more threatening rise in sea levels today, and Dutch floodgates will be closed today and possibly tomorrow. Dave Britton, of the Met Office, said: “This is not a remarkable storm, but what is remarkable is that it is crossing the North Sea in exactly the right direction with the right winds to cause a storm surge. This storm surge is a roughly once in 20 years event, and it’s only about 0.5m less than the 1953 flood disaster.”

The 1953 flood was one of the worst natural disasters in Britain. On the night of January 31 more than 300 people were killed along the East Coast and Thames Estuary when a huge storm surge, whipped up by a more intense storm, destroyed flood defences and the North Sea inundated vast areas of land. London was inches away from flooding, but the sea defences gave way along the North Sea coast, easing the pressure of floodwaters and saving the capital from catastrophe. After the flood, sea defences were improved, the Thames Barrier was built and a flood warning system established.

In the Netherlands, the same surge killed more than 2,000 people and a sixth of the country’s land surface was flooded. As a result the Dutch constructed the largest flood-defence system in the world.