Newsroom
Weather officials have issued a new yellow alert until Thursday at 11am due to weather conditions that could cause flooding and other problems, saying they 'got it wrong' days earlier.
The Meteorology department revised its forecast on Wednesday morning, bringing the awareness level from Orange down to Yellow.
An official statement said “heavy thunderstorms probably accompanied by hail will affect the area,” where “local accumulated precipitation may exceed 50 milimetres in a six-hour period.”
State authorities have been criticized for not warning the public ahead of Tuesday’s torrential rain in the early hours, which resulted in flooding, power cuts, and property damages, mainly in Nicosia and Limassol.
'There was a wrong assessment, we got it wrong,' Nicolaides said, adding that his department accepts its share of responsibility
The head of the state’s Meteorology department, Kleanthis Nicolaides, admitted the error on live television.
“There was a wrong assessment, we got it wrong,” Nicolaides said, adding that his department accepts its share of responsibility.
It turns out that the weather phenomenon, described as a storm, entered Cyprus through Paphos in the western part of the island but it moved out and towards Nicosia and Limassol before torrential rain began, roughly about 2am Tuesday morning.
Nicolaides also pointed out that weather alone is not the cause of problems, such as mudslides and flooding.
“It’s not just the weather by itself that caused problems. But the situation in open fields irrigation systems,” the official added.
Nicolasides said that heavy rainfall is a usual phenomenon in northern countries.
“For us here, it is not,” he added.
Rain continued on Wednesday but not as intense as Tuesday’s torrential rain. Nonetheless, a yellow weather alert remains in effect through Thursday at 11am.
