An unprecedented number of extremely severe storms in France

May and June 2022 have entered the pantheon of months with the most severe storms in France ever recorded. Meteorage, a company that specializes in the detection of lightning activity, has just published that in June 2022 alone, it has detected more than 180.000 lightning strikes in metropolitan France. This is the largest number recorded since at least 1989. 

Hail was one of the most devastating components of these storms, with the agriculture sector taking a major hit after a prolonged period of drought, and the frosty conditions in spring. The first map shows about 1.500 reports of destructive hail with size ranging from 2 to 10 cm, according to the data reports that the European Severe Weather Database (ESWD) has collected so far.

With Data4Risk, we have invested many resources to build a reliable hail-size forecasting system. The second map shows the +9 hours forecast of hail size during the night on May 22, when the department of Indre was severely hit by hail up to 8 cm in diameter. The maximum hail size close to Châteauroux was forecasted to be 7.6 cm and many other affected areas were identified with a 3-6 cm hail size forecast.

Our hail-size forecasting tool can be used to forecast severe weather events or reanalyze past weather conditions, and evaluate claims. 

Contact Data4Risk for more information: hello@data4risk.com