THUNDERSTORMS. Five departments in the south-east are on orange alert this Wednesday, August 17, 2022 for thunderstorms and the risk of flooding is feared in four of them according to Météo France. Find all the forecasts.
[Mis à jour le 17 août 2022 à 10h59] There are still five departments to be placed in orange vigilance for thunderstorms this Wednesday, August 17, 2022: Var, Bouches-du-Rhône, Vaucluse, Gard and Hérault. The stormy episode that started last night continues and is concentrated in the south-east of the country. Intense rainfall, hailstorms and gusts of wind “in the order of 80 to 100 km / h” are expected according to forecasts from Meteo France. The rain has already fallen in impressive quantities this morning on the Mediterranean rim as in Marseilles where the equivalent of rain fell over the last three months was recorded on Wednesday. The weather channel estimates that “the accumulations of rain could reach 40 to 50 mm as thunderstorms pass with, in total, accumulations of up to 100 to 150 mm in the Cévennes taking into account the precipitation that has fallen since yesterday evening” but specifies that the thunderstorms will be ” a priori more diffuse and more localized than initially feared”.
With such quantities of water, all these departments with the exception of Vaucluse are also placed under orange vigilance for the risk of flooding. The fault of the torrential rains which follow the episode of drought and run off without being able to penetrate the soil. It is sudden flooding of rivers and streams and the accumulation of rainwater in the city that are feared.
If only five departments are placed in orange vigilance, the neighboring territories must remain cautious since according to the weather channel twelve other departments of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Occitanie run the risk of seeing violent thunderstorms break out. All of France is covered at least by clouds and several showers fall in all regions. Storms hit the middle Rhône valley, the Massif Central and the north-east of the country in particular. While thunderclaps and hail are expected in the center-east and some showers circulate from Pays de la Loire to the Belgian border according to the forecast. The Southwest and the Paris basin could also see the rains intensify in the afternoon according to the weather forecast.