A fresh yellow weather warning for rain and storms on Sunday was issued by the met office on Saturday evening as Storm Byron’s effect begins to be felt in Cyprus.
The warning will be in place between 5am and 6pm, with the met office saying that “isolated strong thunderstorms are expected to affect the island”, initially in the west and progressing eastwards.
“Hail is expected to fall during thunderstorms while winds will vary and increase,” with rain expected to fall at intensities ranging between 35 and 55 millimetres per hour at the height of the storms.
The storms began in earnest on Friday night, with heavy rainfall and strong winds hitting swathes of the island both on Friday and Saturday.
As such, the Limassol municipality said that all planned Christmas events on Saturday were cancelled, while tornadoes were reported in both the Paphos and Kyrenia districts on Friday night.
In Paphos, uprooted trees fell on properties near the Vrasida folk art museum in the village of Tala, with the village’s mukhtar Ioannis Konnikos saying electricity cables nearby had caught fire after being struck by a fallen tree.
He said that the electricity authority was immediately notified and that power was restored to the affected areas after a two-hour power cut.
In Kyrenia, meanwhile, workers at the Teknecik power station reported “significant damage” to the power station’s entrance and an administrative building as a result of a tornado.
Turkish Cypriot electricity workers’ trade union El-Sen said its workers were “working tirelessly and diligently to repair the damage and restore normal operations as quickly as possible”.
