According to Météo-France, the yellow vigilance level corresponds to a dangerous situation for precarious populations, homeless or isolated, due to their living or working conditions. However, everyone can be affected by low temperatures.
France is experiencing a largely sunny but cold weekend on January 11 and 12. From this Saturday, severe frosts were recorded in the country and the maximums remained quite wintry. Consequence: this Sunday, Météo-France places eight departments on yellow “severe cold” vigilance.
In Doubs, Creuse, Corrèze, Cantal, Aveyron, Lozère, Haute-Loire and Loire, Météo-France considers that the situation constitutes “a danger for precarious, homeless or isolated populations, due to their living or working conditions.
“It can be a cold peak, that is to say a short cold episode (1 to 2 days), or a persistent cold episode,” explains the meteorological institute.
For a “severe cold” alert to be triggered, “temperatures must reach values significantly lower than seasonal norms for the region concerned”.
“A danger to everyone’s health”
In Cantal for example, the authorities warn that “temperatures felt in the Saint-Flour sector could reach -6°C in the morning and -2°C in the afternoon on Sunday January 12, with temperatures felt from around -14°C in the morning and -9°C in the afternoon.
Residents of the departments affected by this vigilance are invited to be attentive if they practice “activities sensitive to meteorological risk”.
As Météo-France reminds us, “extreme cold, like heat waves, constitute a danger for everyone’s health”. Vigilance therefore aims to inform the authorities and the population and makes it possible to recall the advice established by the public authorities to protect themselves.
Vigilance for vulnerable people
The cold affects everyone. However, “health risks are increased for all fragile people (elderly people, infants, convalescents) or those suffering from respiratory or heart diseases”, underlines Météo-France.
“The extreme cold reduces, often insidiously, the body’s resistance capacities,” he explains.
In addition, healthy people “can also experience the consequences of the cold, especially those who work outdoors (traffic officers, construction workers, bus drivers, taxi drivers, etc.)”.
Residents of affected areas should in particular be alert to serious consequences such as hypothermia or frostbite, which should be reported to emergency services as soon as possible. Météo-France and Public Health France have drawn up a list of advice to adopt during periods of extreme cold.
Cold, snow, ice, avalanche…
In addition to these eight departments on yellow alert for “severe cold”, 14 other departments in the northeast of the metropolitan territory will be placed on yellow alert for “snow-ice” this Sunday.
The risk of avalanches will also be “high” today on several massifs of the northern Alps and Hautes-Alpes, after the snowfall of recent days, Météo-France estimated on Saturday, calling for caution.
The index of 4 out of 5 is “strong” in the Beaufortain, Haute Tarentaise, Vanoise, Maurienne, Haute-Maurienne, Belledonne, Grandes Rousses, Oisans, Thabor, Pelvoux and Champsaur massifs, details the organization in a press release.
