Although a gusty wind was initially pointed out as the cause of the damage caused to homes in Penco, Bío Bío region, the Government confirmed that the phenomenon that occurred this Tuesday was a tornado.
This was stated by the Seremi of the Environment of Bío Bío, Pablo Pino, in conversation with the morning “Our House” from Channel 9 Bío Bío TV.
“This has been changing, as evaluations have been made by the Chilean Meteorological Directorate and at this moment we already have the information that “What happened was classified as a tornado.”he pointed.
“The impact remains in the same category based on the information we have received”added the representative of the Environment portfolio in Bío Bío.
In that sense, Pinto explained that “We are talking about winds of 105 to 130 kilometers per hour”.
For his part, the mayor(s) of Penco, Freddy Neira, confirmed that There are 24 homes affectedin the sectors of Plaza Negra, San Vicente and Membrillar, one of them being declared uninhabitable.
Earlier in the day, Neira had indicated that “It is the Navy that is informing us about this, preliminarily they are talking about a tornado”.
Martín Jacques, climatologist and academic at the University of Concepción, consulted by BioBioChilepointed out that “if the phenomenon occurs on land, then it is not appropriate to talk about a stormwhich by definition happens over bodies of water.”
“This morning we had a cold front pass through the area. A tornado can be triggered by different combinations of factors, which in the case of Chile we do not have fully characterized”added the academic.
Along these lines, Jacques pointed out that “among the recognized ingredients, there needs to be convection, which corresponds to the rise of air masses. However, in Chile the convection is not as intense as in other parts of the world where tornadoes are seen more frequently.”
To this, he added that “another important ingredient is vorticity, which is produced when air rotates around an axis (…) Vorticity can be especially relevant if there are not very high convection values.”
Regarding the occurrence of this type of phenomena, the expert stated that “Tornadoes are part of the meteorological phenomena in southern Chile”.
He even recalled that a few weeks ago “we commemorated the 90th anniversary of the tornado that It impacted Concepción on May 27, 1934which unfortunately had several material and human impacts.”
“With this, we have enough evidence that tornadoes occur in southern Chileand therefore we must consciously incorporate them into meteorological events that imply a potential risk, particularly with regard to prevention measures”he sentenced.
