Could the disaster have been anticipated?

In barely an hour, the gigantic opaque cloud swept over Corsica on Thursday August 18. The magnitude is almost unprecedented, as evidenced by images from webcams in the north of the island. The winds were recorded at more than 225 km / h in Marignana (Corse-du-Sud). The storm formed a few hours earlier when warm Mediterranean air encountered a freezing -65C air current from the sky. The temperature difference was such that the elements were unleashed.

A depression got involved, forming a whirlwind and overpowering movement. The first warnings from weather radars detected earlier in the morning that a disturbance was forming. “Two hours earlier, we see that the echoes of the radars are extremely important, powerful, so we suspect that the phenomenon is violent and that it will happen on Corsica (…) It should have been anticipated”, thinks Nicolas Le Friant, forecaster. Météo France only triggered vigilance when the storm struck.