Tornado, mammatus clouds and orange skies: extreme weather hits Poland

Poland experienced a number of rare weather conditions on Thursday, including mammatus clouds and orange skies, as well as a tornado that caused major damage in the south of the country.

On the same day, the neighbouring Czech Republic was hit by an even more destructive tornado, which swept through villages in the southeast, leaving four dead and more than 100 others injured.

On Thursday afternoon the sky in Warsaw and eastern Poland was blanketed by so-called mammatus clouds, which feature distinctive pouch-like formations. These are often associated with thunderstorms, which after a week-long heatwave have begun sweeping Poland in recent days.

Amid the storms, lightning hit a truck in the city of Kalisz, causing six tyres to explode, while in the southwestern city of Opole the town hall was struck, reports Onet. In the southern Małopolska Province around Kraków, hail reached four centimetres in diameter.

A heavy downpour in Warsaw also caused the sky to turn dark in the morning, before a second spectacle in the evening, when it took on a dusty orange hue. Further storms swept the capital in the evening, flooding a number of streets and tunnels.

Meanwhile, in southern Poland, a tornado struck around the villages of Koniuszowa, Librantowa and Piątkowa near Nowy Sącz, damaging 30 residential and 30 farm buildings as well as injuring one person.

The government has pledged help for those affected by the incident. “We will not leave any of the inhabitants of the region…without support,” wrote Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

On Thursday night, a tornado also swept down a 25-kilometre stretch of road between Břeclav and Hodonín in the neighbouring Czech Republic. Winds travelling at over 219km/h ripped off roofs and uprooted trees. There were also reports of tennis-ball-sized hailstones.

Jan Grolich, the governor of South Moravia, said the tornado had caused a “living hell” after visiting the area. The mayor of Hrušky was quoted as saying that half of his village had been completely destroyed.

Dozens have also been taken to hospital and four are reported dead. The tornado has also caused power outages for more than 100,000 homes and led to the closure of a major highway between the country’s capital, Prague, and Bratislava in Slovakia.

Main image credit: Lubuscy Łowcy Burz/Facebook

Maria Wilczek

Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.