A storm swept through Prague. A pilgrimage took place in Horoměřice, the airport was out of order
A very strong storm was advancing northeast of Prague. It was accompanied by hailstones, apparently over two centimeters in size, wind gusts of around 90 kilometers per hour and short-term intense rainfall. As a result of the storm, firefighters had to go out to several units of cases, the Prague airport had to stop traffic for half an hour.
A warning against very strong thunderstorms with a high degree of danger was valid for the northeastern part of the Central Bohemia region until Saturday 16:00. In other parts of the Czech Republic, severe thunderstorms with a low degree of danger are expected until 21:00.
“With greater advance, it is again not possible to precisely locate a place with a strong storm that has not yet occurred, and at the same time it is courageous to ‘hardly miss’ some part of the territory. Nevertheless, we do not expect a large-scale occurrence of strong storms, but only a smaller range of over-limit phenomena that will occur in as part of rapidly advancing bands of precipitation across the entire republic to the east,” meteorologists said on Facebook.
A thunderstorm warning is valid until the evening for all regions. Torrential rain can rarely flood small streams, flood underpasses or underpasses, and wind gusts can break tree branches, warn meteorologists. Hail and lightning can also pose a danger. When driving a vehicle in a thunderstorm, they recommend reducing your speed and driving very carefully.
In Prague, on Saturday afternoon, the firemen went to the emergency units due to storms, a tree fell in the Prague 5 district, but no one was hurt. It was suspended for about half an hour due to a traffic storm at Prague Airport.
According to spokesperson Eva Krejčí, flight check-in at the Prague airport was suspended shortly before 1:15 p.m. due to the storm and lasted about half an hour. According to her, the delay of the planes that were supposed to depart from Prague was not essential. Only the flight from London to Prague was more significantly affected. The plane was diverted to Dresden, where it waited for better weather, then headed to Prague, she added.
In Horoměřice near Prague, on Saturday afternoon, due to a storm and heavy torrential rain, they had to end the traditional pilgrimage in the courtyard of the castle prematurely. In some places in the region, larger hail fell in the afternoon. Firefighters in central Bohemia went out in the afternoon due to the storm to the incident units, mostly removing trees that had fallen on the road.
“We started at 1:30 p.m. and within five minutes it got cloudy, it was almost impossible to see, the wind overturned the stalls, suddenly there was 20 centimeters of water,” said the mayor of Horoměřice, Jan Herčík. According to him, the hail and wind destroyed roughly half of the roof of the barn, and broke the structure of the stalls of the pilgrims.
According to Jana Hujslova from the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, the storms should continue during the afternoon, especially in the southeastern part of Central Bohemia. “The storm for which we issued a warning went west of Prague along its northern edge and further towards Nymburk,” she said.
Despite the storms, the warning of the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute about the danger of fires and the spread of fires and high temperatures in Moravia and Silesia remains in force. Meteorologists expect temperatures there to rise to 31 to 34 degrees Celsius today.