Very impressive, the video of a waterspout sweeping a coast in Greece has quickly gone viral. It was notably posted by the X account (formerly Twitter) of meteo.gr, a weather service in Greece and shared nearly 1,200 times. The extract was also used in videos showing the floods in the country, after months of drought. The full video is visible on several Facebook pages sharing content from the island of Evia.
Some may have doubted the veracity of the sequence, but it was indeed filmed in Greece. It was the restorer of the Zoi tavern in Limnionas, on the east coast of the island of Euboea, who captured the moment on September 5, tells us Stavros Dafis, physicist at the National Observatory of Athens, and administrator of the account X meteo.gr. This is also indicated by the credit in Greek associated with the posts. We tried to reach the tavern in question, but have not heard back for the time being.
Between 65 and 85 waterspouts each year in Greece
This is not an unusual phenomenon in the country. Between 65 and 85 waterspouts are counted each year in Greece, specifies to 20 minutes Stavros Dafis. Fifty-nine have been registered since the beginning of the year. “Autumn is the season when we observe the greatest number of waterspouts, he explains, when the sea surface temperature reaches maximum values and the masses of cold air above the sea create instability and strong storms. »
It should be known that the waterspouts never reach the violence of the tornadoes in force of wind, indicates Meteo-France websiteand form under different weather conditions.
The attribution of this waterspout to climate change is not confirmed: “Due to the constant number of waterspouts reported in the last thirteen years – since a systematic count began – I cannot find a link with climate change. climatic”, specifies Stavros Dafis, but “in theory, with a warmer climate, the number of waterspouts can remain the same, it is their intensity which will increase. »
A storm that is explained by a blockage in omega
Storm Daniel has hit Greece since the evening of September 4, with torrential rains, heavy rainfall has also affected Turkey and Bulgaria. “This is the most extreme phenomenon in terms of the amount of water that has fallen in the space of 24 hours since Greece has had archives on the subject”, estimated on September 5 the Minister of Civil Protection, Vassilis Kikilias. .
Why in France are we experiencing a heat wave and heavy rainfall in these countries? This situation is explained by a so-called “omega” blocking phenomenon, in the shape of the Greek letter “Ω”, with a rise of very hot air from the Sahara towards France, Weather told AFP. -France, and “framed by two strongly low-pressure areas”, causing torrential rains in Greece, Bulgaria and Spain. On X, the climatologist Christophe Cassou pointed out that these “circulations in Ω traditionally generate extreme events, now boosted, made more probable and intense by human influence”.