Storms tear off roofs, topple trees across Poland; over 1,000 firefighter interventions

Storm damage across Poland

A cold front crossing Poland on Saturday, 1 August, unleashed violent thunderstorms with wind gusts exceeding 100 km/h, prompting the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management (IMGW) to issue second-degree warnings for most of the country and triggering RCB alerts in many voivodeships. By evening, the State Fire Service had carried out more than a thousand interventions, nearly half of them in the Mazowieckie and Wielkopolskie regions, where the wind uprooted trees and tore roofs from buildings. The dangerous weather had already forced the evacuation of the Męskie Granie music festival in Wrocław on Friday, with all concerts cancelled. Storm warnings remained in effect for central and eastern Poland until at least 1 a.m. on Sunday.

Wielkopolska bears the brunt

The western voivodeship of Wielkopolska experienced the most concentrated damage, with supercell thunderstorms forming during the afternoon. By 8 a.m. on Saturday, firefighters in the region had already received around 90 weather-related calls, mostly from Pleszew and Krotoszyn counties, concerning fallen trees and broken branches. The situation escalated rapidly: by 5:30 p.m., the provincial headquarters in Poznań had logged over 100 reports of damaged roofs. In Pleszew county alone, strong winds ripped off at least six roofs from residential and farm buildings. Senior brigadier Waldemar Barański, deputy commander of the Pleszew fire service, specified that three of those roofs were torn away in the village of Koźminiec in the Dobrzyca commune. No injuries were reported. In the nearby village of Bógwidze, the storm destroyed a farm building roof and heavily damaged a residential block, shattering windows. By 8 p.m., firefighters in Wielkopolska had responded to 40 weather-related incidents.

The storm tore off at least six roofs from residential and farm buildings, three of them in Koźminiec in the Dobrzyca commune.

Other regions affected

Lubuskie voivodeship also suffered significant disruption. The provincial fire service in Gorzów Wielkopolski recorded 29 weather-related incidents by 8 a.m., mainly fallen branches and minor flooding in the counties of Żary and Słubice. That number climbed to 232 interventions by evening, though the situation began to stabilise after nightfall. In Opolszczyzna, the storms brought hail the size of tennis balls near Namysłów, according to reports from the Sieć Obserwatorów Burz network. Meanwhile, in Podlasie, a milder storm gave way to a display of mammatus clouds after the front passed. Across the country, firefighters in the Katowice and Tarnowskie Góry areas alone responded over a hundred times, mostly to remove fallen trees.

Calmer Sunday ahead

The cold front responsible for Saturday's violent weather is forecast to move eastward on Sunday, 2 August, as Poland finds itself between a low over north-eastern Europe and a high-pressure wedge from the west. IMGW expects higher pressure and sunshine over most of the country, with isolated thunderstorms confined to the south-eastern mountains, including the Tatras, Beskids, and Bieszczady, where small hail and gusty winds remain possible in the afternoon. Temperatures will range from 20–22°C along the Baltic coast and in the north-east, through 23–26°C in central regions, to as high as 30°C in the south, with the warmest conditions expected in Podkarpacie and eastern Małopolska.