Central Greece

Severe thunderstorms and local squalls are sweeping across much of Greece, impacting the Attica region since Friday afternoon.

Storms have moved from northern Attica into central Athens, with hail reported in parts of the capital and power outages in northern suburbs.

Civil Protection is on high alert and has developed an immediate response plan in anticipation of the severe weather that will affect the country until Saturday.

According to the forecast, from today, Thursday, and continuing until Saturday, significant deterioration in weather is expected across most of mainland Greece, with intense rain and thunderstorms, frequent lightning, and localized hail showers.

Specifically:

The Attica region is facing the prospect of water shortages, as the water reserves in Lake Mornos are decreasing significantly, according to a report on private broadcaster SKAI.

An artificial lake located in Central Greece, Mornos serves as a reservoir for the city of Athens.

Traffic restrictions will take place on Attica Road from 22:00 tonight, July 30, until 06:00 tomorrow morning, July 31, due to maintenance work.

More details:

Greece has confirmed 22 cases of rinderpest, with 20 cases detected in Thessaly, central Greece, one in Corinth, Peloponnese and one in Attica.

To date, 10,768 animals have been slaughtered, and another 2,000 are expected to be culled soon.

The scientific community is sounding the alarm over the water scarcity alert that has been sounded in many parts of the country. A total of 14 municipalities in the country have been declared a state of emergency by the General Secretariat of Civil Protection.

The permanent population of Greece, which reached 10.482 million in the recent census, is extremely unevenly distributed across the country. The two most populous Regional Units (RU), those of Thessaloniki and the Central Sector of Athens, host 2.09 million people (20.0% of the total population) while occupying only 2.8% of Greece’s area.

More than 12,000 lightning strikes were recorded across the country by midday Thursday, according to the National Observatory of Athens' Zeus lightning detection network. Forecasts for bad weather with intense lightning activity had been made since the beginning of the week.

Water drainage from houses, traffic disruptions and even fires caused by lightning were some of the problems caused by the 48-hour bad weather that hit the country.The weather subsided late in the afternoon and today summer will return with temperatures rising up to 35 degrees Celsius and local rains and sporadic thunderstorms in the northern and eastern Aegean.