Météo France placed Savoie on orange alert for floods on Thursday and lifted the alert for rain and flooding that remained in seven central departments, after a rainy and stormy episode that severely affected the south-east during the night from Wednesday to Thursday, without causing major damage.
“Rain showers and thunderstorms, sometimes very intense, have affected several areas since Wednesday, particularly the reliefs of the Massif Central and the Alps as well as the Mediterranean coast. They have caused a sudden and brutal rise in the Arc en Maurienne”, in Savoie, placed on orange flood alert on Thursday morning, explains the Vigicrue website.
In the Mediterranean regions, “storms were very active” during the night, Météo-France notes in its latest bulletin, with “more than 9,000 lightning strikes” recorded in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.
According to the meteorological institute, the rainy episode was particularly heavy at certain stations such as Fréjus (Var) and Mandelieu-la-Napoule (Alpes-Maritimes) “with more than 140 mm in 24 hours, or more than a month of rain. Heavy storms also occurred in Marseille with 71 mm over the day” on Wednesday.
In Mandelieu-la-Napoule, firefighters evacuated around forty residents of a home for independent seniors to a gymnasium overnight after the roof collapsed and caused water leaks, they told AFP.
Train traffic was to be interrupted until at least midday between Cannes and Saint-Raphaël, due to an “obstacle on the tracks” resulting from bad weather, causing significant delays, SNCF reported on X (ex-Twitter).
On the coast, in the Var and the Alpes-Maritimes, some people in campsites had been moved to bungalows or to other drier places as a preventive measure until the orange alert was lifted.
In Saint-Raphaël, in the Var, where a storm remained stationary for a long time, a large lightning strike hit a stone cross on the dome of the basilica, firefighters told AFP. This cross fell onto the public highway without causing any injuries, they added.
In Marseille, where the sun returned on Thursday morning, the heavy rainfall recorded on Wednesday had forced the organizers of the Delta festival, where Justice, Julien Granel and Caravan Palace were to play, to cancel the first evening, “to guarantee the safety of all”. The festival is due to open its doors on Thursday at 4:00 p.m. and will last until Sunday.
“The rains have shifted and are continuous, sometimes heavy, this Thursday morning between Normandy, Hauts-de-France, the Paris basin, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and the east of the Rhône,” Météo-France said in its latest bulletin.
“Locally, we can reach significant accumulations that could exceed 50 mm, the equivalent of about a month of rain for these regions. From this Thursday evening and during the night, a new wave of rain is expected in New Aquitaine,” it is added.
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