Tornadoes in Europe as a whole are generally a rare occurrence; even more so in Poland. The data on European tornadoes is sparse because they so rarely occur, but according to one piece of research completed by Nikolai Dotzek, tornadoes are most likely to occur in the UK, Netherlands, Spain and Germany. It was therefore unexpected when a spate of tornadoes hit Poland in July 2012, resulting in the death of one man and countless damage to property.
Poland has been suffering from extreme weather conditions for much of June and July, including torrential rain and flash flooding – as has been the case in other parts of Europe, including the UK. However, the ferocity of the tornadoes was unexpected and unprecedented. According to the BBC, the ‘freak’ tornadoes hit the north and the west of the country, particularly Kujawy-Pomorze and Wielkopolska provinces.
About a hundred homes in the area were destroyed, power-lines were felled and a large portion of trees in a national park have been damaged. Fortunately, despite the severity of the tornadoes, only one person was killed when a man was crushed in his home when it was hit by a tornado. A few other people were injured. Reuters’ photos show the extent of some of the damage.
Historically, there may have been very few tornadoes in Poland, but they may be becoming a more regular occurrence – just four years ago in 2008, another tornado hit the country, causing serious damage.
According to the National Geographic, scientists don’t fully understand why tornadoes occur, although they are more frequently seen in America than anywhere else and, in over-simplified terms, appear to occur when moist warm air hits cool dry air. Library.thinkquest.org describes a tornado as “a powerful column of winds spiraling around a center of low atmospheric pressure.” Inside the tornado, the winds ‘spiral upward and inward,’ which then creates a vacuum. Objects that the tornado passes over are therefore sucked up into it and destroyed.
Tornadoes are categorised on the Fujita scale from 0 to 6 according to their wind velocity; the Polish tornadoes were classed as category 2, with a wind velocity of up to 200 kilometres per hour. In addition, the average tornado is 0.2 to 0.3 kilometres in diameter and can travel extremely quickly. As the BBC reports that one of the tornadoes in Poland may have been a kilometre in diameter, it is easy to understand why so much damage was caused.
1,000 rescue workers have been sent to the hardest hit areas to help clear up lose debris and ensure that the locals have access to basic utilities. This is proving to be particularly important because the stormy weather is set to continue in Poland, although hopefully the tornado season is at an end for the next few years.
