THE superyacht that sank after being hit by a tornado off Sicily was in a weather “danger zone”, according to meteorologist Jim Dale.

He told GB News: “Any observers looking at the weather at the time perhaps would have been taken a little bit by surprise, to say the least, the synoptic situation.

“By that, I mean where the lows and the highs were. There was a big, a big area of low pressure on them. There was activity already in place.

“If you look a little bit further north into Austria, Vienna way, there were big deluges there as well, big floods off the same low pressure area, so it was a danger zone.

“I don’t know what the situation was on this particular yacht, whether they had a meteorologist on board or anybody who was trained, but sometimes these things do occur, particularly this type of event.

“A water spout is quite unusual, if it hit directly, then it would have been a catastrophic impact.

“They are extremely powerful, extremely scary. They move very quickly, so it’s a case of no escape.

“If they were moored, that’s a good thing. At least they weren’t at sea, but if people were on board at that time, they were likely to have been asleep, so not in the best situation to necessarily escape.

“These things happen extremely quickly. It’s one of those weather phenomena that we hope doesn’t happen to you, to yourself, or to people around you, but occasionally, and especially at this time of year, in that kind of situation, they do occur.

“Unfortunately, this is one that’s already a casualty and probably more to follow.”

He added: “Sicily, particularly on the northern side, they’ve been suffering drought, rather than necessarily big events like this, but the heat that’s been generated…will probably will be part of the equation, in terms of feeding that particular cumulonimbus cloud and the water spout that then followed.

“They should be getting the advice. They should be taking weather advice. As I say, in the middle of the night, everybody’s asleep. Sadly, it’s one of those things that occurs from time.”