Lhe forecasters didn’t see it coming. At least not with such intensity. When she woke up in yellow vigilance on Thursday morning, Corsica was hit hard by a storm as violent as it was sudden. Gusts of up to 224 km/h and thunderstorms that caused five deaths, around twenty injuries and innumerable material damage.
The stormy episode started around 8 a.m. However, it was not until 8:35 a.m., after recording these extreme gusts, that the two island departments were placed “immediately” on orange vigilance to alert the population.
READ ALSO“Nobody saw anything coming”: in Corsica, the amazement after the storm
In Corsica and on social networks, many Internet users have not failed to express their incomprehension, sketching the shadow of a controversy after these deadly bad weather. Was the orange alert triggered too late?
“It is a little too early to say,” said Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, traveling to the island on Thursday evening. Others, in any case, have a more decided opinion on the question, like Étienne Farget, amateur meteorologist. “Wednesday afternoon, we could not predict the intensity of this phenomenon, believes this former weather risk forecaster for the Météo-Contact site. But Thursday morning, shortly before 7 a.m., it was obvious that we were heading for an intense episode. The satellites were eloquent. Surely there was a hitch. ” Friday morning, the Minister of the Interior considered that ” the weather alert did not qualify as necessary these absolutely exceptional winds formed in a few minutes “.
Rethinking the alert system
Like this weather enthusiast, many Internet users do not hide their astonishment. On Twitter, Sébastien Brana, administrator of the Infoclimat association, also wonders about this alert “which is not triggered within the time necessary to protect people and property. Should we speak of a missed forecasters?
Although he admits having been “surprised” by the violence of this episode, Patrick Rebillout, head of the Météo-France center in Corsica, explains that “numerical models, even the most efficient supercomputers, have difficulty predicting phenomena as sudden, this is what made us belatedly switch to orange vigilance. As of Wednesday noon, however, the prefecture had been warned of a stormy episode which could affect the coastal areas with gusts of up to 100 km / h. Even if, obviously, our forecasts underestimated their intensity and their ability to go inland. »
The proliferation of these intense phenomena could, however, lead the services of Météo-France and the authorities to rethink the alert system. According to forecasters, a project is being studied with the General Directorate of Civil Security to set up the ” cell broadcast “, a cell broadcast technique by geolocation allowing to send alerts by SMS to people in a risk area.
“It is the only solution to be able to quickly warn the greatest number of people possible, considers Patrick Rebillout. It is a system that has proven itself in other countries. I have high hopes that we can generalize it in France. »