It’s the return of lightning. Météo-France has placed six departments in the south-east of France on orange “storm” vigilance from Wednesday morning. Ardèche, Bouches-du-Rhône, Drôme, Gard, Hérault and Vaucluse are placed on orange vigilance on Wednesday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. due to a “strongly stormy situation which requires particular vigilance insofar as there is a strong risk of a violent phenomenon”, indicates the meteorological institute in its bulletin of 4 p.m.
“Tomorrow, at the end of the night, the weather will become stormy in the lower Rhône valley. Sometimes violent thunderstorms are expected. They will be accompanied by violent gusts of wind and hail”, still anticipates Météo-France. These six departments are also concerned by a yellow “rain-flood” vigilance.
“Up to 100 mm per hour”
Earlier in the day, Marc Pontaud, research director at Météo-France, had told AFP that these departments could be placed on orange storm vigilance due to a “Mediterranean event”. Two distinct stormy sequences should cross France until Wednesday, with in particular a “worrying potential” in the South-East, Météo-France announced.
“There are still a lot of uncertainties about the intensity” but locally the precipitation could reach up to 100 mm per hour with a risk of stationary rains, “a potential that worries us”, underlined Marc Pontaud.