(MENAFN) Intense and unexpected weather conditions hit Alexandria, a city in northern Egypt, on Saturday. The event featured powerful gusts, significant thunderstorms, and hail, leading city officials to announce an emergency status and postpone school examinations.

The Alexandria Governorate issued a formal communication detailing extensive disturbances throughout the urban area. Fallen trees, broken street illumination, and inundated roadways were consequences of the storm. Response crews were mobilized to clear away wreckage and pump out floodwaters, aiming to return the city to regular operations.

Videos circulated online depicted streets submerged in water, frequent lightning, overthrown utility poles, harmed automobiles, and intense rainfall, causing alarm among the local population.

Mahmoud Shaheen, head of forecasting and early alerts at Egypt’s Meteorological Authority, explained that a low-pressure weather pattern caused the storm by lowering temperatures and forming low-altitude thunderclouds. He characterized the event as a rapidly advancing weather front, dismissing possibilities of it being a damaging cyclone.

Such weather phenomena are common in winter and spring, according to Shaheen. He elaborated that the intensity of this particular storm resulted from downbursts combined with the low-lying storm clouds.

Governor Ahmed Khaled Hassan Saeed mandated heightened readiness across all municipal divisions. He instructed the public transit agency to enhance bus frequencies to aid students traveling to their exam locations. Furthermore, he delayed the start of middle school tests by sixty minutes, prioritizing the well-being of students and giving cleanup teams additional time to address dangers.

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