Extreme weather: Scenery of destruction in northern Greece (videos-photos)

The country braces for a new wave of severe weather

By Sunday afternoon, the country is expected to be hit by a new wave of severe weather that has been given the name “Girionis”.

Its main features will be heavy rains and thunderstorms accompanied by hailstorms and stormy south winds.

In particular, there will be clouds across the country, initially with rain or thunderstorms locally in the Ionian Sea and the mainland. In the evening the phenomena will intensify locally, according to the Athens National Observatory’s meteo weather service, with significant worsening late at night at the southwest with heavy rains, thunderstorms and strong winds and possibly hailstorms too.

Temperatures will range from 2 to 13 degrees in Western Macedonia, 5 to 16 in Northern Greece, 7 to 18 in Epirus and Central Greece, 10 to 19 in Western and Southern Greece, from 8 to 20 in the rest of the continent. In the Ionian Islands the temperature will be from 12 to 19 degrees, while in the Aegean islands and Crete the temperature will range from 11 to 21 degrees Celsius.

The winds in the North Aegean will blow from the east up to 5 Beaufort and will increase by the afternoon hours at 6 to 7 Beaufort. In the rest of the Aegean, the winds will blow east to southwest moderate to strong 5 to 6 Beaufort, with significant late night winds of 8 Beaufort and local high winds of 9 Beaufort at night. In the Ionian Sea, the winds will blow from east to southwest almost 6 to 7 Beaufort, and from windy to very windy in the evening 8 to 9 Beaufort.

In Attica there will be heavy rains and possibly thunderstorms in the afternoon. However, during the night hours of Monday, strong thunderstorms will occur, accompanied by very strong winds and possibly hailstorms. The winds will blow from the east up to 5 Beaufort and from late night northeast from 7 to 8 Beaufort. Temperatures in the city of Athens will range from 12 to 18 degrees Celsius.

The need for vigilance and planning in the immediate hours ahead to avoid the worst in light of the new wave of bad weather expected on Sunday night was highlighted in a wide-ranging government meeting in Halkidiki, which has been hit by heavy floods in recent hours. “There is no time to lose,” stressed Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos, who arrived early in the morning with Olympiad, along with Deputy Interior Minister Theodoros Lebaniou, in order to inspect the damages of the last 24 hours in Halkidiki.
Similar heavy damages occurred in the island of Thasos in northern Aegean.