OUR bad weather in outer space gone, but the “dust” he raised about whether the 112 activation was correct remained. According to the criticism of many citizens in social networks, neither the forecast of meteorologists “got caught” nor the decision regarding the wave of messages received by citizens in many regions of Greece are not justified.

But what do decision makers say about this criticism?

“Yes, it was the bad weather we were waiting for, with heavy rain all over the country.– says the director of EMI – the National Meteorological Service “K”, Thodoris Kolidas even the mention of specific areas where the forecast that the service gave 3 days earlier was confirmed: “In Corfu on Saturday, we had 111.6 millimeters of rain. On the other hand, in the north of Attica, the rains were actually less than expected., but let’s take a look at Piraeus with an intense 15-minute burini. Piraeus was the area highlighted in red on the EMY hazard map and the rain there was potentially dangerous.”

And what does the above mean for using 112? As Mr. Kolidas answers: “First of all, forecasts also have their deviations, although they have made great leaps of improvement in recent years. True, there is still a problem with what is called Currently casting (i.e. accurate last minute forecast based on revised data) due to lack of radar. Satellites and our experience help us a lot, but in fact we need radars to become the best in this area.”

The second point that Mr. Kolidas stands on is that 112 is indeed a parameter of informing the world, but he must get rid of the narrow part of the forecasts and acquire a different philosophy – the philosophy of prevention. As he put it, “In that sense, the message was right. A culture of prevention definitely needs to be nurtured“.

After all, according to Mr. Kolidas, civil protectionwhich is responsible for the final decision on the activation of 112, takes into account other factors, such as, for example, flood risk plans for each of the 13 regions of the country (you can see them at floods/ypeka.gr).

As for EMY, as its director explains, the service takes into account data from the pan-European Meteo Alarm system and its special precipitation height indicators. Based on them, each area of ​​the map is “painted over” with the corresponding color.

“But how many citizens know the limits of danger?” asks Mr. Kolidas, adding: “A survey I did on my personal Twitter account yesterday, Sunday, shows that 60% of people don’t know about them. (sp question of Mr. Kolydas was the following:Answer, please. The reason is obvious: the official EMY levels are posted on their website. weather alarm clock (yellow, orange and red) for rain and other phenomena. Do you know them?)”

According to an experienced meteorologist, this is not the fault of the townspeople. information was not given to them.

As he emphasizes: “Lack of knowledge creates side effects. There must be a common language between a citizen and any body that transmits information. At the same time, everyone should know what red means, what orange means, and so on on the precipitation map. Regarding the fires, the perception is better, as the Civil Protection through trailers and messages “publicized” the problem more.

In any case, according to Mr. Kolidas, other information tools are needed. “It’s one thing to get a message from 112 on your cell phone at 11 p.m., but it’s another thing to go to the source yourself,” he says, adding: “The truth is that the websites of official weather services are unattractive, resulting in many citizens being informed about the weather in a massive, fragmented and often hysterical way..

The solution, in my opinion, is one – to create an Internet weather radio, as is done in America. Thus, every citizen will be able to listen to responsible, live forecasts from responsible people, wherever they are. And the radio is essentially adapted to all needs – a fisherman to learn about Beaufort, a farmer about rain, and so on. This is something I have been thinking about for many years, and I have also proposed this to Civil Protection.”

112 as prevention in an era of climate crisis

We asked the competent service, according to what criteria the activation of 112 over the weekend was chosen, which makes a decision based on (among other things) the EMY forecast. Secretary General of Civil Protection, Vasilis Papageorgiou told “K” the following: “112 is sending warning messages so that each of us can take the necessary measures to protect ourselves so as not to put our lives or property at risk.

This is the most important parameter in the fight against natural disasters – strengthening prevention, preparedness of citizens, vigilance, awareness that everyone can be in an emergency situation, especially when we are dealing with dangerous weather events.

112 is the only way of direct real-time communication between the civil protection mechanism and the citizen. This immediacy is valuable. Saves lives. Posts by unauthorized people who do not understand the value of a warning and talk about the alleged overuse of 112 during a recent spacewalk due to bad weather, only show ignorance of international developments regarding early warning systems. We need to move to a new culture. The climate crisis and its consequences are forcing. Prevention and preparedness by citizens and mechanisms is the key to greater security for all of us.”

“Citizens should know what criteria are used to send messages”

The director of the Athens National Observatory and the scientific director of meteo.gr also expressed his opinion on this “K”. Konstantinos Laguvardos. According to him, 112 it is a very useful tool as long as citizens know the criteria by which it is activated. “But they don’t know about it,” he notes, adding that if they messages are sent not only with the logic of expecting an extreme (and therefore rare) event, but also with a warning logic in cases of lesser intensity of the eventsthis is what we need to know about.

He proposes to categorize each bad weather – the Observatory has long created a five-level scale. “In order to come up with the spacewalk at the observatory, we studied the rainfall over the past 30 years and took into account a number of factors, such as the population of each region,” says Mr. Laguvardos, who, in turn, emphasizes that the lack of radar makes it difficult to accurately observe the last moment, and thus get more “correct” reports.

“Therefore, radars need to be bought, and everyone agrees on this. Until then, existing tools can be used, such as satellite estimates of rain height and measurements from the Observatory’s dense network of ground meteorological stations, which are depicted, for example, on the well-known rain path maps issued by the meteorological service, ”concludes the expert. own.