Hurricane Medicane hits football matches before hitting Turkey

İZMİR

All football games of the amateur league in the western Turkish province of İzmir have been canceled ahead of the expected landfall of Medicane, the first hurricane in Turkey’s modern history.

İzmir Amateur Sports Federation said in a statement on Sept. 28 that the games were canceled with the approval of the Turkish Football Federation due to weather reports warning of “extremely negative conditions.”

A tropical storm formed in the Central Mediterranean is expected to gain strength and move east in the coming days, the state-run Meteorological General Directorate said in a statement on Sept. 27.

Dubbed “Medicane” as a combination of the words “Mediterranean” and “hurricane,” the system is expected to bring winds as fast as 180 kilometers per hour when landfalling in Greece.

If it will directly hit Turkey instead of landfalling in Greece, the hurricane can devastate the Turkish coasts from the provinces of İzmir to Antalya with some 125 kilograms of rainfall per square meter.

It will be the first hurricane in Turkey’s modern history and only around a dozen of them have been recorded in the past centuries.