Greece has not yet recovered from storm Daniel and it has to brace itself again for the next storm: Elias. Weather models indicate that more than 200 liters per square meter may fall in 48 hours due to heavy showers and thunderstorms in the center of the country. One model even shows precipitation amounts approaching 600 liters. Once again the cause is a low pressure area that lingers over the Mediterranean Sea.
LOOK. Storm Daniel causes major damage in Greece
An altitude trough above Europe split off a small low-pressure area at altitude from the jet stream last weekend. This is now shifting to the east of the Mediterranean Sea and will remain there. The restricted low-pressure area creates an unstable weather type in which moist air from the Mediterranean Sea is blown into the country for a long time.
This will cause persistent intense showers in Central Greece, with a high chance of thunder. The amounts of precipitation that weather models currently calculate still vary widely. Moderate forecasts calculate 200 to 300 mm in the coming days, while the more extreme ones scale that up to as much as 500 mm or even a bit more. The main focus of precipitation is expected in and just south of areas recently impacted by Storm Daniel.
On Tuesday, September 26, Elias will be hovering over western Greece. At that time, the weather services speak of category 3 in terms of rainfall (on a scale of 5). The system will strengthen on Wednesday and will move over the center, south and east of the country. At that time it is referred to as category 4 in terms of rain intensity. If one looks back at the past 30 years (period 1991 – 2020) in Greece, of the 1374 days with bad weather, barely 3% (41 days) reached category 4. After Thursday afternoon the storm would decrease in intensity again.
Storm Daniel is still fresh in the minds of the Greeks. On September 4 and 5, enormous amounts of precipitation fell from the sky, resulting in severe flooding. In some places in central Greece, the annual amount of precipitation fell in less than 2 days. Approximately 73,000 hectares were flooded, much of which was agricultural land. There were also 10 casualties. Some experts suspect that a number of permanent lakes were formed during the floods, while erosion and the silt left behind by the floods have caused the soil to no longer be fertile for about 9-10 years. It is expected that many farmers will therefore migrate to other areas. Daniel then developed into a medic with a lot of emergency situations in Libya.
Global warming makes what happened in Greece in early September 10 times more likely
The fact that these types of exceptional amounts of falls in Greece can be linked to climate disruption, according to scientists. Global warming makes what happened in Greece in early September 10 times more likely. This would appear from a study that has not yet been peer-reviewed World Weather Attribution. People in affected regions would also be more vulnerable to these types of storms due to construction in flood zones, clearing of forests and negligence in dam maintenance.
Greece may expect abundant rainfall, with the exception of the British Isles and Scandinavia, it will remain dry in most of Europe in the coming days. A powerful high-pressure ridge with an extension from the Azores High lies steadfastly over Europe and keeps low-pressure areas and rain zones at bay. The autumn bud is on pause with late summer weather in most countries.
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