Storm warning: 24 departments placed on alert

Météo-France has placed a large part of the north of the country on orange alert for thunderstorms this Wednesday at the end of the afternoon. The forecast.

All of Île-de-France, but also the Ardennes, Marne, Aube, Haute-Marne, Eure, Seine-Maritime, Orne, Oise, Aisne, Eure-et-Loire, Loir-et-Cher, Loiret, Cher, Yonne, Nièvre and Côte-d’Or were placed on orange alert this Wednesday, July 31. Thunderstorms are expected to break out in the late afternoon and evening, “in a disorderly manner”, specifies Météo-France in its bulletin.

Concretely, between 20 and 40 mm of rain could fall in one hour, “sometimes more”, warns the meteorological service, which warns that “strong electrical activity, locally hail, and gusts of wind of the order of 70 to 90 km/h locally more” are also on the agenda. The storms are expected to continue until late at night. For the time being, the orange alert runs until 3 a.m. Thursday.

A first stormy episode on Tuesday evening

On Tuesday evening, a dozen departments had already been placed on alert for violent storms. While no casualties were reported following the storm, some damage was still reported, especially flooding of homes. Images and videos on X also show the violence of the storms and the intensity of the rain and winds.

In Seine-Maritime, the municipalities of Bois-d’Ennebourg and Martainville-Épreville, as well as Yerville and Bois-l’Évêque, were the most affected, according to our colleagues at Actu, with 44 homes flooded. The Orléanais was also affected by violent winds and hail. Flooding of homes in the Puiseaux area, in Pithiverais, kept the firefighters busy late at night, according to the website The Republic of the Center.