In the evening from Sunday to Monday, Meteo France has placed the Hautes-Pyrénées, Ariège and Haute-Garonne in red vigilance for rains and floods. A first for the latter department, in particular because of the cumulative rainfall recorded in the middle mountains.
This is also the case in other departments where forecasters noted between Sunday midnight and Monday at 2 p.m. nearly 130 mm of rain in Arbeost in the Hautes-Pyrénées or 155.4 mm in Augirein in Ariège, a department where the phenomenon is particularly exceptional in intensity.
Orange raw vigilance
“On average, above an altitude of 500 meters, in 36 hours we recorded 100 to 140 mm of rain. In Toulouse, the intensity is lower. In Francazal, we thus had 61 mm, but the phenomenon is not over. It will rain until the end of the afternoon and there will still be 10 to 20 mm of accumulation. In 48 hours, a very good month of rain will have fallen, ”explains Jean-Yves Choplin, forecaster of Météo-France.
If the precipitation will stop in the evening in the Pink City and over part of the Pyrenees, the consequences on the rivers should be felt until tomorrow morning.
Until midday Monday, the rain-snow limit was at 2,000 meters above sea level, snowmelt will therefore increase the flows of rivers and streams, whose flow was already high because of precipitation. A large part of the tributaries of the Garonne and the river itself are therefore in orange vigilance.
Return to Saint Girons #flood 📷ian ours ariegeois all of Couserans and Comminges are the most affected areas pic.twitter.com/iAUsKJToLx
– Weather Pyrenees (@Meteo_Pyrenees) January 10, 2022
The Salat in Saint-Girons was overflowing in the middle of the day. “The courses of Lez and Ariège will rise again during the day, with overflows. We expect a peak of the Garonne at the level of the Pont-Neuf Tuesday morning, with a level between 3.50 and 4 m ”, indicates a spokesperson for the national flood forecasting service in France, Vigicrues. A level equivalent to that of January 25, 2014, “the flood was significant since the river had reached 3.78 m at Pont-Neuf”, recalls Pascal Boureau, forecaster at the departmental center of Météo-France at the time.
The #Garonne in flood at #Toulouse pic.twitter.com/rhIqAgIInb
– Toulouse City Hall 🇫🇷🇪🇺 (@Toulouse) January 10, 2022
As of this Monday afternoon, roads in the Haute-Garonne department were already flooded in certain areas of the department, especially near Gardouch and Ayguevives on the RD16.