the many departments placed in vigilance

The first thunderstorms are expected by the Pointe du Finistère this Tuesday evening, July 22, 2025, and they should concern very many regions this Wednesday, July 23. Caution.

In its 4 p.m. bulletin, this Tuesday, July 22, Météo France has already placed almost all of the country in yellow vigilance for potential violent phenomena in the next few hours (thunderstorms and rain-round). And orange vigilance may well be issued in the coming hours.

The weather context is typical of “altitude forcing”, summarizes on actu.fr Meteorologist Yann Amice. A cold drop, a very cold air pocket located more than 5000 meters above sea level, will be centered on the north of France this Wednesday, on a heat background still very present in low layers. A configuration conducive to strong thermal contrasts, and therefore to significant atmospheric instability.

Locally very sustained rains and hail

Numerous thunderstorms, sometimes strong, even violent, but localized, are notably afraid of the Loire Center-Val, the north of Rhône-Alpes and the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. And few regions will actually be spared by thunder in the coming hours.

The most virulent thunderstorms could affect Lyonnais, the Val de Saône, Drôme, Ardèche, but also the Southern Alps and the surroundings of the Mediterranean.

This degradation will arrive through Brittany and then extend to Normandy and the Pays de la Loire from the night of this Tuesday to Wednesday, July 23, bringing the first stormy rain. And this Wednesday morning, the sky will always be (very) covered and the rainy weather from the north to the center and in the southwest, “with sometimes thunderstorms and temporarily very sustained rains”, warns Météo France.

Thunderstorm forecasts this Wednesday, according to the European ECMWF model (Map from Meteologix):

Thunderstorms again on the menu Thursday and Friday

In the afternoon of this Wednesday, this agitated time will persist and win east, until Lorraine, Burgundy, Auvergne and Occitanie, with still more virulent thunderstorms, with hail risks, warns the weather organization.

Maximum temperatures this Wednesday? They will vary between 20 and 25 ° C over the western half of the country, 24 and 28 ° C to the east, or even 30 ° C near the Mediterranean, with 34 ° C points in the Var and in Corsica.

The rest of the week? “Thursday, July 24, thunderstorms will gradually regress, with conditions that will gradually improve by the West,” anticipates Yann Amice.

Thursday, July 24, thunderstorm rains will nevertheless continue on the Grand Est with a risk of significant combination of rain, and thunderstorms will always concern a northern part of the country (from the center to the northeast) in the afternoon. And Friday, July 25, intense thunderstorms will be possible on the Var, the Alpes-Maritimes, and the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and in Corsica.

It will be necessary to wait until Friday afternoon to see the temperatures go up everywhere. And, if the weekend of Saturday, July 26 and Sunday, July 27, promises to be summer in the south, over the northern half, the sky will remain more changing, with a few waves or cloudy passages which will still be able to circulate, “but in a clearly calmer context”, estimates Yann Amice.

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