Reality is much worse than forecasts: western Germany and Belgium hit from Wednesday to Thursday, 14.-15. July 2021 the next flooding wave and severe storms left behind havoc and a big tragedy.
The worst of the flooding has been in the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia and the city of Liege, Belgium, where buildings and cars have been washed away.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, currently in the US ahead of a meeting with President Joe Biden, said she was “shocked by the disaster” according to BBC.
According to the newest updates, around 61 dead in western Germany and 6 death in Belgium are reported from regions hit by anomalously strong storms, which have brought according to the ESWD database up to 207 mm of rain only in 9 hours (Reifferscheid, Rheinland-Pfalz region).
The next around 70 missing is estimated, but these numbers should increase, yet during the next hours.
Floodwater according to available materials heavily flooded regions near regional rivers, cars were floating in turbulent water, homes were flooded almost up to roofs, only one big collapse of the house has produced 30 missing.
Early data are showing, that 250 mm has fallen in 24 hours in some regions of western Germany.
Severe storms should appear regionally until Saturday, 17. July, yet, then between Sunday and Tuesday, 18.-20. July is expected calmer weather but after 20. July 2021, extreme storms are forecasted to return.
Germany, mainly its western parts are drenched by severe storms since mid-June 2021 when a quasi-stationary frontal boundary is regenerating above the western half of continental Europe.
This circulation should be a result of shifted stormtrack into southern regions because the traditional region between British Islands and Baltic region, mainly Scotland, Scandinavia, and Baltic states, is in the last period and will be in the next weeks anomalously dry, while frontal waves were re-directed above France, Benelux, southern England, Germany, the Alps, and Czechia.
Above the eastern and southern half of Europe, persisting heatwaves on the other hand are blocking the next movement of frontal boundaries from western Europe farther above the continent, with the result of long-term storm events just in lastly hit regions.
