Destructive storms, giant hailstones, tornadoes: what happened in Europe?

Several ultra-violent stormy waves crossed Europe between Friday and Sunday, giving rise to extreme weather phenomena: tornadoes, giant hail and torrential rain.

After a week marked by strong heat, the stormy degradation was particularly violent. Between Friday and Sunday, several stormy waves crossed Europe, from the south-west of France to Belgium, then to Germany. In question, a conflict of air masses explosive, with hot air rising from Morocco to France, passing through Spain (raising the mercury up to 35°C in France and 41°C in Spain) and cooler air associated with the arrival of a depression. Ideal conditions for generating supercellsthe category ofthunderstorms the most violent. More the contrast of air masses, the greater the risk of supercells: to obtain this type of storm, a difference of 10 to 20°C is necessary between these two air masses, exactly what happened these last last days.

The stormy wave which crossed France this Friday intensified when it arrived in Belgium and Germany in the evening, the two countries were moreover placed in “ extreme thunderstorm risk “. Many tornadoes formed under storms in Germany, and one of them was devastating: one dead, sixty injured, millions of euros in damage.

The Paderborn, Germany tornado shape and radar imagery (with a characteristic hook to the south of the storm) is befitting of what can be seen in the Great Plains of America.

In France, this Sunday evening, a supercell generated giant hailstones of 8 to 10 centimeters towards Niort in Deux-Sèvres: it could be a record for the country.

The extreme size of these hailstones testifies both to the immense height of the cloud storm, and violent currents that were present inside.

Under these storms, the rainfall was torrential, with locally 20 to more than 50 millimeters of rain in a few hours, enough to improve the drought situation in Vendée, Maine-et-Loire and Loire-Atlantique.

These storms also generated powerful gusts of wind, up to 107 km / h in Rosnay in Indre.