After eleven days of overwhelming heat wave on almost all of the country, the scorching episode ended on Tuesday August 19, Météo-France announced at 6 am. On the Mediterranean perimeter, the departments of the Pyrénées-Orientales, Aude, Hérault, Gard, Bouches-du-Rhône, Var and Vaucluse were demoted to yellow alert.
In its 14-hour bulletin, the Institute placed the Côtes-d’Armor in orange Rain-Inondation and Thunderstorms who thus join the departments of Hérault, Gard and Lozère. The organization specifies that“A geographic extension to the neighboring departments to Côtes-d’Armor is not excluded” as well as other departments in the Southeast and Corsica.
In the west of Brittany, the pluvio-storm episode started in Côtes-d’Armor with 40 millimeters (mm) of precipitation fallen into the south of the department and up to 80 mm estimated with meteorological radars.
Unpublished temperatures noted
In three South-East departments, Météo-France has planned a “Stormy activity during the day with an active evening passage in the evening and first part of the night”. “The cumulative rain expected can locally be important in a short time”specifies the institute, with precipitation of the order of 60 to 80 mm and up to 120 mm on the relief. Thunderstorms, accompanied by strong electrical activity, hail and gusts of wind, should start in the early afternoon on the reliefs and in Lozère, before spreading to the plains at the end of the afternoon.
The heat wave that has just ended started on August 8 in the country. First confined to the south, with particularly high temperatures on the South, it reached an exceptional level between Monday and Wednesday last week from the southwest to the center-east, where unpublished temperatures were noted.
In France, 266 weather stations recorded at least 40 ° C or more between August 9 and 12 – is more than all the second half of the 20th century (235).