Since yesterday, heavy rainfall and thuderstorms are battering the central part of the continental Greece. According to the latest model runs, this storm – named Elias by the Greek weather service – could bring a total yield of precipitation between 100 and 400mm in the coming days on the very same areas that have been hit the hardest by Storm Daniel.
From the hydrological standpoint, the forecasts show a larger uncertainty as the scenarios currently predicted by the models differ significantly in both the magnitude and the timing of the event. Besides, it is not known to what extent the flood protections in place, severely damaged by the previous floods, could endure another round of high flows. At present, there is a high likelihood for flash floods to affect the upper reaches of the catchments across Thessaly and Sterea Ellà da mostly today and tomorrow whereas flood waves will propagate along major rivers between tomorrow and Friday.
Widespread inundations are expected to occur across the upper reaches of the Pineios r. in which more than 1,000km2 were submerged during the event earlier this month. As large swaths of the region are still under water as satellites detected as of yesterday, though Elias appears to be a less powerful storm than Daniel, its impacts could be as severe due to the much more vulnerable environment it is about to affect.
On these premises, this morning ERCC has decided to activate Aristotle, the multi-hazard forecast service in which this week CIMA Research Foundation is lead for floods and forest fires.