Saturday’s storm in Novojičín’s Hrabětice was caused by a weak tornado. Officials at the Ostrava branch of the Czech Institute of Hydrometeorology came to this conclusion based on information obtained on the ground, said Marie Grofakova of Chum’s regional forecasting department.
“Yes, it was confirmed to be a weaker tornado, but we don’t have a precise classification yet,” she said. She added that the international scale has 12 categories, including an intermediate level. “This is on the lower end of the scale,” she added.
The tornado hit Hrabětice, a settlement belonging to Jeseník nad Odrou, on Saturday. Strong winds damaged roofs and chapels and snapped trees. No one was injured.
Mayor Tomáš Machýček (Venkov 2018) said he expected the damage to be in the tens of millions of crowns. Almost all houses were damaged, he said. Hrabětice has two dozen. The wind almost always destroyed roofs and fences and uprooted trees.
“There’s really enough damage there. It was unexpectedly fast. Here in Jeseník, we didn’t even know about it. It was really only local to Flavetice. Flash floods came in. It was exactly the same as when I was in 2009. It was sudden, and in an hour and a half it was “drawn” into the village, Machýček noted.
Meteorologists recorded three tornadoes in the Czech Republic in the first half of this year, all of a weak nature. Most important was what happened in Ranjota in mid-June. It appeared northeast of Pardubice in May and near the village of Sviny in the Tabor region of southern Bohemia at the end of June.
One year passed in June of this year tornadoSix people were killed and more than 1,200 houses were damaged in Breclaw and Hodonin. About 200 of them had to go to the ground. Tornadoes at that time were over 300 kilometers per hour. In some municipalities it has reached 4 degrees and is stronger than ever in the Czech Republic.
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