Calvi, Friday, August 19, Gérard Darmanin announced the upcoming opening of an investigation to take stock of what did not work.
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After the violent thunderstorms that struck Corsica, causing at least five dead, it is Météo-France who finds himself in the eye of the cyclone. On social networks, on television sets, the organization is the target of criticism and taunts, accused of being guilty of a “big failure”, giving the alert too late. Since Calvi (Haute-Corse), the Minister of the Interior, Gérard Darmanin, announced, Friday, August 19, the upcoming opening of an investigation, with the civil security services, to take stock of what is did not work.
“The weather alert did not make it possible to qualify as it should be these absolutely exceptional winds which formed in a few minutes, commented severely Mr. Darmanin, seeming to reject responsibility only on the meteorological organization. What We note at the Ministry of the Interior, is that the weather alert arrived a few minutes before most of the bad weather. So at 8 am, an evacuation of the campsites was not physically possible. “
Thursday, August 18, in its 6-hour bulletin, Météo-France only placed Corsica just yellow vigilance (“Be attentive”), like a good part of the territory. The forecasters then anticipated only “powerful thunderstorms (…), at sea near Corsica, with strong gusts of wind”, which could “very temporarily affect the western and north coast”. The orange alert (“Be very vigilant”) was only activated at 8:30 am, after the arrival of the storm on land with phenomena of tornadoes. However, it was between 8:15 a.m. and 9:15 a.m. that the storm was the most violent, with gusts measured up to 224 kilometers per hour, or levels never observed so far.
“Thunderstorms remain the most difficult to foresee episodes”
Météo-France acknowledges having been “surprised” by an “exceptional” and “hardly predictable” situation by its digital models. Certain simulations produced by “Aroma”, the Maison de Météo-France model which turns on its Toulouse SuperCalculator, “let suggest a thunderstorm close to the one that was observed”, while other simulations “which seemed more likely, the Located more at sea, “said forecastist François Gourand, during a press briefing. “If it was necessary to alert as soon as an extreme scenario appears in the digital forecast, we would do far too much vigilance and the system would become useless”, judges his colleague Christophe Morel. There is a balance to be found, alert enough and not to overcome. “In the case of Corsica, he believes that there were” not enough elements “to go to the orange alert.
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