Anthony Kaczmarek, edited by Solène Leroux with AFP 2:18 p.m., August 18, 2022
The violent storms that have hit the Mediterranean since Tuesday have killed at least three people and injured twelve on Thursday in Corsica, where the emergency services are carrying out numerous rescue operations at sea. This situation in Corsica raises questions, because Météo-France triggered the alert late .
Why did the meteorological organization take so long?
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The violent storms that have hit the French Mediterranean since Tuesday left three dead and several injured on Thursday in Corsica, where the rescue services are also carrying out numerous rescue operations at sea. A 13-year-old girl and a 72-year-old woman died Thursday in Corsica- South, affected in the early morning by brutal thunderstorms and gusts of up to 224 kilometers / hour.
In Haute-Corse, a 46-year-old Frenchman died in a campsite in Calvi.
Twelve people were injured, said the prefecture of Corse-du-Sud in a provisional report.
Storms in #Corse du Sud - update at 10:30 a.m.
Provisional report: 2 people dead - a 13-year-old girl and a 72-year-old woman, 12 injured including one in absolute emergency https://t.co/tBWVLE0Zjb
– Prefect of Corsica, prefect of Corse-du-Sud (@Prefet2A) August 18, 2022
This situation in Corsica raises questions, because Météo-France has, it seems, triggered the alert extremely late, Thursday morning only.
Why did the meteorological organization take so long?
Quite simply because there was what is called a trajectory error in the forecast.
Four times a day, the supercomputers of Météo-France, huge computers, grind billions of equations per second and produce a forecast map for the next few hours.
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Since Wednesday evening, all the scenarios envisaged by these computers saw, indeed, an immense package of storms being created this Thursday morning.
But these very violent storms were supposed to pass at sea, between Corsica and the continent.
The storms have changed direction
At 8 a.m. this morning, things got out of hand as something moved on the radar images, which made it possible to follow the rains and lightning strikes live.
The storms present at sea changed course and headed due west, towards the west coast of Corsica.
A particularly organized line of strong #storms will approach Western #Corsica in the coming minutes.
Violent gusts of wind, intense lightning, and strong rainy activity giving rise to substantial accumulations in a short time are expected.
pic.twitter.com/SR7mRqpjIU
— VigiMeteoFrance (@VigiMeteoFrance) August 18, 2022
It was at this time, at 8:04 a.m., that Météo France tweeted: "A line of strong thunderstorms will approach western Corsica in the coming minutes."
At 8:29 a.m., a gust of wind at 224 km / h was therefore noted in Marignana.
The orange alert is triggered immediately, but it's too late.
Conclusion: the machines have been overtaken by nature and all this unfortunately shows that the weather is not yet an exact science.
#Corsica An exceptional 224 km/h gust has just been measured at the Marignana station on an exposed part of the west coast, 131 km/h in Ajaccio!
#Corsica goes into #vigilanceOrange immediately!
Be careful, also for other hazards related to #storms.
— VigiMeteoFrance (@VigiMeteoFrance) August 18, 2022