You know that joke about heavy thunderstorms with big hailstones coming? They didn’t come. The KNMI issued a warning for our province: code orange. Or risk of extreme weather with nuisance. In the end it remained with light thunderstorms and some rain. Annoying for people who stayed at home because of the weather forecast and sad for visitors of, for example, festival Awakenings that was cancelled. How could the weather forecasters be so wrong?
“In Brabant we have not had any problems with severe weather. But in other provinces such as Limburg, Friesland and Overijssel there was a nuisance. Trees fell over there and streets were flooded,” Alfred Snoek van Weerplaza nuances the image that he and his KNMI colleagues were wrong with their prediction.
“These types of thunderstorms arise hyperlocally.”
The KNMI and Weerplaza use the most modern equipment to make a good weather forecast. Such a prediction should therefore become increasingly accurate.
“But these kinds of thunderstorms arise hyperlocally. You only know where it is happening at the last moment. It is an interaction of all kinds of factors. The wind that came from the south changed into a cooler westerly wind during the afternoon. part of the warm air blown away. And it is precisely that warm air that is a breeding ground for thunderstorms.”
“You only know half an hour in advance whether a shower will blow over.”
If the wind had turned two hours later, Brabant might have been screwed, says Snoek.
“It’s a huge jigsaw puzzle. All puzzle pieces have to be in place to get fierce hail or thunderstorms. You only know half an hour in advance whether a shower will blow over. We warn festivals and fairs, for example. If they don’t close and it goes wrong, then it’s not good either.”
READ ALSO: Awakenings was canceled due to a shower: ‘But we couldn’t take a risk’