New two hour severe storm warning system

PALMA
A two-hour hurricane storm warning system was unveiled in Majorca yesterday which should be able to give the region sufficient warning next time a violent storm like the one which trashed the region in October starts heading our way.

Majorca's new state-of-the-art radar system has finally been installed at Cap Blanc and was presented to the various emergency services yesterday by the head of the Balearic met. office Agusti Jansa.

The system uses the very latest weather tracking and analysing technology and the area covered by the radar has a radius of 200 kilometre and a height of one kilometre.

What is more, the system runs a weather update every two seconds which means that the new weather centre will be tracking weather in real time and therefore able to provide immediate weather alerts.

All of the region's emergency and security services, as well as the armed forces will be linked to the centre so, in the event of a severe weather warning being issued as soon as it is detected inside the 200 kilometre radius, all of the emergency and security services will be immediately informed as well as the relevant local authorities and necessary action taken.

The air traffic control tower at Palma airport will also be connected to the centre and fed round-the-clock data on weather phenomena which will ease the pressure on air traffic controllers and improve air traffic control.

Jansa was accompanied by the director of the National Meteorological Institute which will also be linked up to the Cap Blanc radar, Francisco Cadarso, who said the control centre is the most advanced in Spain and cost 1.72 million euros.

The 14 other similar weather control centres in Spain are now going to be gradually updated with the same equipment which has been installed in Cap Blanc.

Jansa explained that the new system also enables meteorologists to study any strange weather phenomena in three dimensions enabling precise decisions to be taken and, hopefully, minimalise the impact of severe storms similar to those which caused hundreds of millions of euros of damage last October and claimed two lives in Majorca.