Risk of flooding: the Kirk depression arrives in France with strong gusts and intense rain

With orange vigilance over a large part of France, many departments are watching with concern the arrival in the territory of the Kirk depression this Wednesday, October 9. The ex-hurricane, formed off the coast of Senegal, is already causing “intense rain” from Vendée to the Ardennes and strong gales in the southwest of the country, disrupting rail traffic in New Aquitaine . 34 departments are still placed on orange vigilance, including 24 for “rain-flood”, ten for “wind” and two for floods (Seine-et-Marne and Vendée), according to Météo-France.

As a precaution, the SNCF has scheduled a total interruption of traffic on several routes on Wednesday, notably between Dax (Landes) and Tarbes (Hautes-Pyrénées), Bayonne and Hendaye (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) or even Saintes and Royan (Charente-Maritime).

A month of rain in one day

In New Aquitaine, Météo France recorded gusts of 211 km/h during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday in the area of ​​the Iraty ski resort, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. “Such gusts in Iraty are not usual”explained to AFP Christophe Dedieu, president of the Météo Pyrénées association, who expects “some mayhem very locally in very exposed areas” of the Pyrenean foothills, for example the Gave de Pau valley.

But it is also a month of rain which should fall in one day on an axis going from Vendée to Champagne-Ardenne, to the south of Picardy via the Paris region. Météo-France warns of the risk of flooding, due to “already very wet soils” after a particularly rainy month of September.

In Deux-Sèvres, over the last 24 hours, 40 to 50 mm of rain have already fallen locally. Up to 90 mm of rain are expected during the day in Vendée and Loire-Atlantique, as well as in the Ardennes and Meuse, Météo-France indicates in updated forecasts.

In Loire-Atlantique, the rains will increase in intensity during the day, reaching 10 to 15 mm in an hour, according to a press release from the prefecture. The rains will gradually ease but « 50 à 70 mm » are still planned in the Paris basin and in Champagne-Ardenne and « 30 à 60 mm » near the German border and in the Centre-Val de Loire region.

From Dauphiné to Lyonnais, to the Loire and Burgundy-Franche-Comté, “90 to 110 km/h” bursts are expected, also warns the institute, which emphasizes that they occur on “regions weakened by heavy rains” from the day before.

Already record rainfall in September

First passing through the Iberian Peninsula, Kirk caused damage in Portugal, with 400 trees uprooted in the region of Porto, the large city in the north of the country. 300,000 people were deprived of power there.

Storm Kirk continues the very wet trend of the year over most of mainland France. At the end of the rainiest month of September in 25 years, the average annual precipitation totals have already been exceeded almost everywhere in the country, in Nice, Saint-Nazaire, Strasbourg and even Le Mans and Paris.

Globally, September was marked by “extreme precipitation”, exacerbated by the planet’s abnormally high temperatures for more than a year, a consequence of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions from the humanity, according to the European Copernicus Observatory.