The heavy rain, flooding, hail and storms that have hit several provinces in Turkey have disrupted daily life in many regions and even led to the formation of several tornadoes in various parts of northern and western Anatolia. These phenomena, which were filmed by local residents, caused serious damage to barns and homes in several villages and also left at least five people injured.
The heavy rain that hit the province of Izmir on Thursday, on Turkey’s west coast, where the air temperature reached 21 degrees Celsius, led to the formation of a tornado around midday on Thursday in Seyrek, a residential area some 30 kilometres from the city of Izmir. The weather phenomenon, clearly visible from the Menemen plain – where a brief hailstorm was also recorded – was filmed on mobile phones and caused concern among local residents, according to the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.
Further north, in the province of Çorum, another tornado caused damage in the villages of Oyaca and Kavşut, in the district of Sungurlu. After the emergency services were alerted, numerous firefighters, gendarmerie, teams from the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) and medical staff were deployed to the area. Initial inspections revealed that the roofs of some homes had been blown off, whilst trees and electricity poles had been knocked down, according to initial damage assessment reports. Here, the formation of the tornado was also recorded by local residents.
The governor of Çorum, Ali Çalgan, personally inspected the damaged homes and emphasised that the tornado caused severe damage in the region, noting that such extreme weather events have been affecting the region with increasing frequency in recent years. “Such incidents have begun to occur in the region in recent years. In 2019, there was another tornado that affected the city of Çorum. The incident we have experienced today caused extensive damage, but fortunately there were no fatalities. We have five injured: three of them were treated at the scene by the ambulances that arrived here, and two were taken to hospital as a precaution. One of them was suffering from breathing difficulties. Another of the injured had a cut and was also taken to hospital. We have not yet been able to restore the electricity supply,” he said.
Climate change is increasing extreme weather events
In the district of Kızılırmak, in the neighbouring province of Çankırı, the strong winds and heavy rain that began to affect the region on Thursday afternoon also led to the formation of another large tornado, which was visible from numerous points across the district and was filmed by several residents.
Professor Şermin Tağıl, from the Department of Geography at Bakırçay University in Izmir, warned in comments reported by the Anatolia news agency that climate change is causing increasingly frequent extreme weather events that are having a greater impact. As an example, she explained that the surface temperature in the Aegean Sea has recently risen by 2 to 3 degrees above the usual values for this time of year.
“Under these conditions, a mass of cold air that entered the region from north-western Turkey caused a tornado to form in Izmir today. The rapid rise of warm, humid air increased the temperature difference between the lower and upper layers of the atmosphere, bringing hail to some areas. In the coming days, the energy accumulated in the atmosphere could trigger sudden and powerful convective storm systems when it comes into contact with cold air masses from the west and north-west,” the expert said.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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