Weather alerts continue in southwest France

Eight departments remain on orange weather alert on Monday, after overnight storms swept across southwest France.

Ariège, Aveyron, Haute-Garonne, Gers, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Hautes-Pyrénées, Tarn, and Tarn-et-Garonne were kept on Meteo France's second-highest weather alert level in the national forecaster's early morning weather bulletin.

Travel was treacherous on the A61 between Carcassonne and Toulouse early on Monday.

Meteo France warned up to 50mm of rain could fall in a short period, adding to high levels of rainfall over the past 12 hours or so, which as much as 80mm of rainfall in a few hours in places.

Meteo France predicted that conditions across the affected departments would improve by about 2pm on Monday, but it warned that localised storms could develop in the afternoon.

The railway line between Castelnaudary and Villefranche de Lauragais was cut by overnight localised flooding.