Violent winds and heavy rain alert
Winds of up to 120kph expected today and up to 30cm of rain as storms sweep across centre of France
VIOLENT winds and heavy rains this morning have seen 26 departments in the centre of France put on orange storm alert, with thunderstorms expected from Poitou-Charentes across to Champagne.
Burgundy’s Saône-et-Loire has seen winds this morning already of up to 65kph and sustained winds of up to 110kph forecast by Météo France in Val de Saône and Charolais.
Already the opening of the Grand Pavois de La Rochelle, one of the west coast’s largest boat shows has been postponed 24 hours to tomorrow by the weather.
Up to 100,000 visitors are expected and organisers said they had been warned of two storm episodes, one from 6.00 to 11.00 and the second from 16.00 through the night.
The western coast awoke to heavy thunderstorms with hundreds of lightning blasts spreading from the sea inland as far north as Nantes and Angers sparked by a depression off Brittany. People have been warned to take care with heavy seas lashing the Atlantic coastline and the Mediterranean off Bouches-du-Rhône.
The storms will spread quickly across into the centre of the country with intense rain for a relatively short period before moving on.
Towards mid-day Auvergne and the Lyon area will be heavily affected with hailstorms at the start of the afternoon and gusts of 120kph have already been recorded on high ground.
Areas covered by the orange alert are (for violent winds) Ain, Ardèche, Drôme, Isère, Rhône, Saône-et-Loire and (for thunderstorms) Allier, Aube, Cantal, Charente, Charente-Maritime, Cher, Corrèze, Côte-d'Or, Creuse, Deux-Sèvres, Haute-Loire, Haute-Marne, Haute-Vienne, Indre, Loire, Loiret, Nièvre, Puy-de-Dôme, Vienne and Yonne.
In Ardèche the southern wind will give heavy cévenole » rain with up to 30cm on high ground in the next 24 hours.
Météo France says the storms will continue until 6.00 tomorrow.
Meanwhile, TV channel TF1 has put out a video of its weather programme yesterday where presenter Evelyne Dhéliat is knocked over by a rugby tackle. The skit which has already been viewed three million times - was mocked up to advertise that the Rugby World Cup, which starts on Friday with England v Fiji, is live on TF1 between September 18 and October 31.
Alerte Météo France : l' #Yonne placée en vigilance orange orages https://t.co/8m5ILvs2sp pic.twitter.com/j2wFDkztPR— France Bleu Auxerre (@bleuauxerre) September 16, 2015
