• Météo-France placed 28 departments on orange vigilance for thunderstorm risks on Wednesday.

    Thunderstorms that arrive after only a few days of high temperatures.

  • Without being able to accurately predict long-term events, Météo-France expects a stormy summer, due to the high temperatures and dry air.

  • A reminder of the actions to adopt is never superfluous: avoid sheltering under a tree or against a wall, and find a covered and closed shelter.

Barely a few days of suffocating temperatures and thunderstorms are already arriving.

This Wednesday morning, Météo-France placed twenty-eight departments on orange vigilance for thunderstorm risks.

According to the institute's forecasts, these events should last and bring down temperatures.

To understand these phenomena,

20 Minutes

interviewed Olivier Proust, forecaster at Météo-France. 

Where did this stormy wave come from?

For Météo-France, this stormy wave is anything but a surprise.

It responds to the very principle of meteorological circulation.

Very hot air has settled over the country under a high pressure screed which will gradually shift towards the East.

At the same time a very disturbed oceanic regime approaches and plunges towards Portugal.

A classic pattern that causes South-South-West lifts in France.

Clearly, there is a very hot air in the low layer, the one which makes us sweat profusely, and a very cold air which circulates above.

This results in a cloud vacuum cleaner, which produces very towering cumulus clouds.

What to expect

We must expect “tough” storms, according to Olivier Proust, with associated phenomena that could be violent: heavy hail and squalls, over a week from Thursday.

These are violent and sudden winds that arise ahead of the storm.

“The weather is very calm and all of a sudden, we take a strong gust of wind,” explains the forecaster.

These squalls could reach 80 to 100 kilometers per hour.

They will precede a curtain of rain and hail.

Fairly classic events but which require great vigilance, recalls Météo-France.

Which regions will this stormy wave affect?

If New Aquitaine is to inaugurate summer thunderstorms this afternoon with hailstorms.

The phenomena should continue their course towards the Paris Basin from tomorrow, sweeping through the Pays-de-la-Loire and the Val-de-Loire.

On Friday, the wave is expected to reach the territories of northern France.

If the wave should allow the thermometer to drop in these regions, it should not be enough to shake the temperatures which will remain excessive in the Lyon-Alpes-Grand-Est triangle, until the weekend.

What to do during thunderstorms?

“Significant electrical activity, a risk of hail and squalls.

“Nothing exceptional for a violent storm according to Météo-France.

But Olivier Proust specifies however that these thunderstorms remain dangerous and that they can, in the case of stationary thunderstorms, cause flooding of cellars and overflows in poorly drained areas.

He therefore recalls the good behavior to adopt in the face of these natural phenomena: limit his movements, stay in a covered and closed shelter, do not take shelter under a "pseudo-shelter" like a tree, an umbrella and no longer at the foot of a tree. 'a wall.

"And if it is necessary to specify it, it is better to avoid setting up a barnum in the South-West at 6 pm this Wednesday.

"

What about the rest of the summer?

"It is difficult to predict stormy pulsations but we have a tendency which gives probabilities".

For Olivier Proust, the stormy episodes should repeat themselves this summer.

The hot, dry air of the heat waves to come is conducive to severe storm damage.

To sum up, this summer, it's going to blow up.

Society

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