Weather Newsflash World

Daniel also causes flooding in Libya

Last week, Storm Daniel brought extreme amounts of rain to Greece. In recent days, it has moved south across the Mediterranean Sea, taking on tropical characteristics. Yesterday Sunday, the "Medicane" hit Libya, with some large amounts of rain being measured, especially along the coast. In Al Marj, not far from Libya's second largest city Benghazi, 142 mm of rain were recorded within one day. Typically, just 270 mm of rain fall there in a year, with it usually being completely dry between May and September.

In Greece over 750 mm of precipitation so far!

As expected, the storm Daniel in Greece since Monday brought enormous rainfall totals and partly stormy gusts. According to the Greek weather service Meteo, it is one of the strongest storms ever to hit this country. By 8:45 p.m. local time on Tuesday, a daily precipitation total of 754 mm was recorded inZagora in Pilio (Fig. 1), far surpassing the daily precipitation record of 644.7 mm set in Paliki in Kefalonia in September 2020! From midnight tonight to 8:30 am local time,194 mm was recorded at Kofi in Magnisia . For comparison, Athens receives an average of 400 mm of precipitation within an entire year!

However, measured values are missing, since due to the extreme precipitation most weather stations in Magnisia and on the Sporades no longer send data due to a power outage.

Devastating floods, deaths and severe infrastructure damage have been the result so far. Greece's national weather service warns of intense rainfall and gale-force winds through Thursday. Depending on the model, from 2 a.m. today until 2 a.m. Friday, September 8, up to 300 mm (Fig. 2) are again expected, according to the high-resolution model RACE even 400 to locally 600 mm (Fig. 3)! The situation is expected to calm down until Friday.

Devastating rains in Greece - great danger of severe weather!

An Omega high has built up over Europe. The name is derived from the Greek letter Omega (the last letter of the Greek alphabet), because it has a similar shape "Ω", as the high, which has inflated like a balloon. The lower approach of the high is flanked by two lows. One of them is over the Atlantic, the other low is between southern Italy and Greece. The latter will bring torrential rains to Greece over the next few days. Individual high-resolution models simulate locally with up to 1000 mm of rain in the period from Monday afternoon (4.9.) and Wednesday evening (6.9.)! Due to these gigantic rain masses in some areas of Greece with devastating floods or landslides must be expected - there is very big danger for life and limb! Especially the region of Thessaly with the capital Larissa should be strongly affected by the storms. Here much points to a true natural disaster! Only marginally affected will be, for example, the capital Athens.

Typhoon Saola hits Hong Kong

As a tropical depression, Typhoon Saola has its "birth date" on August 23, 2023. In the days that followed, the storm rapidly developed into a typhoon and looped around in the Pacific east of the Philippines, but has never made direct landfall. On August 29, the super typhoon moved west between the Philippines and Taiwan with winds peaking at over 300 km/h. Now the typhoon is heading for Hong Kong, where it will also arrive in a few hours. The center of the typhoon will pass only a few kilometers south of Hong Kong.

Thus, uncomfortable hours lie ahead for the nearly 8 million residents in Hong Kong. Even if Typhoon Saola weakens slightly now, wind peaks of 100 to 130 km/h, locally even more, are to be expected in Hong Kong. In addition, locally up to 200 mm of rain will fall in 2 days. Also strongly affected will be the region of Macau and other cities along the coast to Zhanjiang. However, the typhoon will also weaken further over the weekend.

Over 43 degrees in France - new records

In France today, on this August 23, 2023, five official measuring stations measured 43 degrees or more. Puy-Saint-Martin was the hottest with 43.5 degrees, followed by Salindres with 43.3 degrees. Various new monthly and all-time records were thus broken. In Orange, for example, the previous maximum temperature was exceeded by 0.1 degrees. The previous record from the century-hot summer of 2003 was 42.6 degrees.

An overview of the official measuring stations in France that measured over 42 degrees today is shown in the following hit list. Tomorrow Wednesday and also on Thursday there will be again 40 degrees and more in various places in southern France – the heat wave still continues!

Highest temperature (as of 20:54)

Considered time period of the hit list (France) from August 22, 2023, 06:00 to at 20:54 (duration 14h 54min).

Measuring stations	Highest temperature (in °C)
Puy-Saint-Martin	43.5
Salindres	43.3
Moulès-et-Baucels	43.2
Grospierres	43.0
Siran	43.0
Orange	42.7
Saint-Christol-lès-Alès	42.7
Cardet	42.6
Saint-Barthélemy-de-Vals	42.5
Uzès	42.5
Durban-Corbières	42.5
Argeliers	42.4
Lapalud	42.4
Soumont	42.3
Cadenet	42.3
Montségur-sur-Lauzon	42.2
Vinsobres	42.2
Carpentras	42.2
Lagrasse	42.2
Générargues	42.2

 

Rain record in "Death Valley"

Death Valley is located in the Mojave Desert in the west of the USA. The largest part lies in the US state of California. The region is very dry, rain falls here only on a few days a year. Over the whole year there are about 30 rainy days and about 120 mm of rain. Yesterday, August 20, 2023, 55.88 mm of rain fell within one day, more than ever before on a single day since measurements were taken in 1911, as the National Weather Service NOAA writes on X.