2023-08-07 09:20:53
storm
Written by Rainer Ackermann
Since Friday, the storms have also caused billions in damage in Hungary.
Around 1,300 trees fell and around 230 (residential) buildings were damaged, but fortunately there were no fatalities. The severe weather warning from the OMSZ weather service came into effect on Friday night. Heavy downpours flooded the capital and its environs. The M0 ring road had to be partially closed due to the water masses, many local transport lines were diverted, and trains ran with considerable delays. Storm gusts with peaks of up to 129.6 km/h were measured at the international airport “Ferenc Liszt”, two Ryanair machines on the ground were damaged by the storm, several approaches were diverted to Vienna and Debrecen during the night. Because a runway had to be cleaned of dirt for hours as a result of the storm, there were hours of delays in departures on Friday morning.
Budapest was one of the hardest hit on Friday, with many streets flooded. Photo: MTI/ Zoltán Mihádák
Storm wall 300 km wide
In this one night alone, almost 75 mm (!) of precipitation was measured in the Mátra Mountains, in Budapest already 40-65 mm caused traffic chaos. (In Slovenia, where there were several fatalities, there was record precipitation of locally up to 210 mm!) During the course of Friday the storm moved eastwards across the country. In addition to Budapest, severe damage was also reported from Debrecen, Hajdúszoboszló and Püspökladány; firefighters had to pump out flooded basements and stretches of road, and remove uprooted trees that flattened dozens of cars. In Vas County, residents of several places, including Szentgotthárd, had to stack sandbags to protect their homes.
In the second wave of the cold front, an extremely wide storm wall unfolded on Saturday night – as forecast by the meteorologists. In Transdanubia, along the Danube and in northern Hungary, 30-40 mm of rain fell, accompanied by heavy rumbles of thunder and hundreds of lightning bolts. The OMSZ registered cloudbursts over a distance of more than 300 km from Pécs in the south to Salgótarján in the northeast of the country. During the night, on a branch line of the MÁV railway near Balassagyarmat, a passenger train crashed into a tree that had fallen onto the tracks. Numerous international IC trains were also affected by torn overhead lines.
More than 4,000 (!) damage reports were received by the civil protection from the greater Budapest area alone. In Szabolcs, the storm covered the roofs of several residential buildings, in Nyíregyháza a detached house caught fire after a lightning strike. On Saturday afternoon, the storm raged most heavily in Hódmezővásárhely, but the fire brigades also had to deploy to a large number of operations in Hajdú-Bihar and Borsod counties. In Eger, the storm wind covered part of the roof of the town swimming pool.
Across the country, the storms uprooted more than 1,300 trees, like here in Hódmezővásárhely. Photo: MTI/ Ferenc Donka
Rivers flood
Freshly inaugurated automatic water reservoirs saved two smaller towns on the Rába (Raab) from disaster. According to the water management, these basins held several 100,000 m3 of water. On the Rába and on the border rivers Mura (Mur) and Dráva (Drau) to Slovenia and Croatia, the highest flood warning level applied from Saturday morning. For the Danube and Tisza, only the first warning level came into force, but for tributaries of the Tisza the 2nd level also came into force. While 60 mm of precipitation usually falls in August, in the last three days it has been 70-110 mm in the northern low mountain ranges, in Transdanubia and Budapest 40-70 mm.
The Rába is already dangerously flooded. Photo: MTI/ Zsolt Czeglédi
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