The sky will thunder over part of France this May 1st. Rain will extend from Provence to Languedoc, Massif Central and Center, then to Normandy with a wave of strong thunderstorms going from Burgundy to Hauts-de-France.
In its 6 a.m. bulletin, Météo-France placed 14 departments on orange thunderstorm alert. In addition to those of Ile-de-France, Oise, Somme, Aisne, Marne, Aube and Yonne are affected by this level of vigilance.
“Marked electrical activity”
In these departments “storms are expected to be virulent with high intensities of precipitation, hail, squalls” as well as “marked electrical activity”, indicated the meteorological agency.
On the border Alps, a return from the east will bring sustained and regular precipitation with a rain-snow limit around 2,200 m. It will rain more lightly on the Atlantic coast, except the Breton tip which will find variable skies. Elsewhere the sky will be very cloudy in general, brighter in the northeast.
In the afternoon, in the west, the rains will slowly sink into the interior of the country, in Pays-de-la-Loire, Poitou and the South-West. To the west of the Pyrenees, the rain-snow limit will drop from 1,600 to 1,100 m, to the east from 1,900 to 1,500 m.
Strong gusts of wind expected
The rains will persist from Normandy to the Center, Massif Central, Languedoc and PACA, they will also reach Rhône-Alpes. In the North and North-East, the weather will deteriorate except for Alsace which will maintain sunny weather. The sky will become cloudy and storms will break out in the late afternoon and evening in Burgundy-Franche-Comté. They will sometimes be violent with a risk of hail and strong gusts of wind, up to 80 km/h. These storms will shift in the evening to Champagne-Ardenne, Ile-de-France then Hauts-de-France during the night.
Minimum temperatures will range from 8 to 12 degrees, locally 6 to 7 in Brittany, 11 to 14 near the Mediterranean. The maximums will range from 13 to 16 degrees in the southwest half of the country, from 14 to 20 degrees from the southeast to the north, from 20 to 25 in the northeast with peaks at 26 or 27 in Alsace.