Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credits: 11:50 a.m., March 28, 2024
The Nelson atmospheric depression did not spare Vendée on Wednesday evening. Around sixty homes on the island of Yeu were hit by a mini-tornado, which caused only material damage. On the west coast, six departments are still on orange wind alert this Thursday.
A mini-tornado affected around sixty houses on Wednesday evening on the island of Yeu, in Vendée, placed Thursday like five other departments on the west coast on orange alert due to violent winds linked to the atmospheric depression Nelson, announced the town hall. According to the first elements available from the Vendée prefecture, the meteorological phenomenon does not seem to have caused major damage.
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The mayor of Ile d'Yeu, Carole Charuau, spoke on radio France Bleu Loire Océan of "roofs torn off, fallen trees and a shattered bay window". “A mini-tornado occurred late evening/early night” Wednesday, indicates a press release from the town hall released Thursday morning. It impacted “around sixty houses” and “a few citizens in difficulty” received support from firefighters and municipal technical services.
“The roofs of the entire neighborhood need to be redone”
“Big intense and very brief gust of wind, my pergola passed over the house to land on the road, hitting the neighbor's house. Broken slab and tiles,” testified a resident on the Climat-Vendée Facebook page , led by a “team of meteorology enthusiasts”. “It happened in a fraction of a second, a deafening noise and a wind of unprecedented violence,” says another resident, according to whom “the roofs of the entire neighborhood need to be redone.”
The town hall of Île d'Yeu indicated Thursday morning that it was collecting information on the damage. In total, the Vendée firefighters intervened around fifty times between Wednesday 8:00 p.m. and midnight, mainly for falling trees and road clearances, but although the wind blew strongly in the department, the mini-tornado phenomenon did not occur. has not been reported elsewhere than on the island of Yeu.
Six departments on wind orange vigilance
“Risks of whirlwind phenomena mainly concern Poitou-Charentes” this Thursday, warns Météo-France. In addition to Vendée, Charente-Maritime and Deux-Sèvres are also placed on wind orange vigilance, as are Côtes-d'Armor, Finistère and Loire-Atlantique.
Météo France has placed #Vendée on #weather alert at level:
ORANGE for the phenomenon of violent winds this Thursday, March 28 from 8:00 a.m.
YELLOW for the risk of submersion waves for high tides on Thursday March 28 at 6:00 a.m. and 6:16 p.m. (coefficients of 85 and 82)
The… pic.twitter.com/uhygaQDsgP
— Prefect of Vendée (@PrefetVendee) March 27, 2024
In these departments, "the expected values are of the order of 120 to 130 km/h near the coasts and 100 or even occasionally 110 km/h inland, under stormy + squalls in particular", forecasts Météo- France. A gust was measured at 183 km/h at Pointe du Raz, in Finistère, indicates meteorologist Stéven Tual on X (ex-Twitter).