Thunderstorm alerts are in place for a swath of Europe from Poland and Hungary to Italy and Greece.
There are orange warnings for northern Greece, as the summer heat gives way to violent storms and the risk of flooding. Serbia and Kosovo face similar alerts, while much of Italy is under a yellow storm warning.
Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of heat waves, triggering extreme weather events from violent storms to wildfires. As the Mediterranean Sea warms — reaching a record average temperature last week — it’s turbo-charging storms across the region.
Further south in Greece, Athens and the surrounding Attica region still face a high risk of wildfires, along with Peloponnese and the islands of Rhodes, Crete and Lesvos. There were 32 blazes in 24 hours to 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
While it’s been the worst wildfire season in two decades in terms of outbreaks, there has been just one major blaze — on the outskirts of the capital early last week — after the deployment of drones and cameras accelerated response times.
Now the Greek government is looking at drafting a new fire-prevention and reforestation plan for Attica next month. It will also address the risk of flooding on land burnt by wildfires.
“Technology has helped us a lot,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said after meeting with mayors of areas of Attica affected by last week’s blaze. “We’re already building a technological infrastructure hat will allow us to locate fires very quickly and to adopt the dogma of first strike in a much more aggressive way than we have done in the past.”
Heat warnings are still in place across southern Spain, with temperatures climbing as high as 40C (104F) on Wednesday.
There’s also a yellow warning for heavy rain in the west of Scotland, while the Gironde in southwest France is on flood alert.
⚠️ Yellow weather warning UPDATED 📷
Heavy rain across western Scotland
Valid 1100 Wednesday to 0800 Thursday
Latest info 👉 https://t.co/QwDLMfRBfs
Stay #WeatherAware⚠️ pic.twitter.com/pCigWi4vAN
— Met Office (@metoffice) August 21, 2024
Photograph: Lightning striking over Nice, France, on Aug. 14, 2024. Photo credit: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images
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