After lifting vigilance in the morning in seven departments stretching from Normandy to the west of Ile-de-France, Météo-France placed, on Wednesday January 10, six other departments, this time in the center and the south of the country, on orange snow-ice alert, until Thursday. These are Aude, Aveyron, Cantal, Hérault, Lozère and Tarn.
“Precipitation is gradually becoming organized from the Mediterranean, in the form of snow down to low altitude this evening and next night,” notes the meteorological organization in its latest bulletin. Snowfall, sometimes moderate, began in Lozère and Cantal. Météo-France adds that “during the night from Wednesday to Thursday then Thursday morning”, the latter “could spill over into neighboring departments” to those placed on orange vigilance.
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This bad weather is part of a “snowy episode that is not exceptional for the season but is notable enough to cause difficult traffic conditions,” notes Météo-France. From the afternoon, “snowfall gradually increases in Lozère, Cantal then the Hauts Cantons de l’Hérault”, before “weakening and becoming rarer at the end of the next night on [the] Lozère and [the] Cantal, later on the Hauts Cantons de l’Hérault”.
In Aude, Tarn and Aveyron, “the expected snow depths are of the order of a few centimeters on the plains but will be significantly greater on the relief with generally around twenty centimeters above 800 meters on the departments in orange”, it is further noted.
The rest of the departments of mainland France, with the exception of five departments (Maine-et-Loire, Indre-et-Loire, Vaucluse, Bouches-du-Rhône and Var) remain placed on extreme cold yellow alert until midnight or snow-ice. Orange vigilance for snow-ice concerning Manche, Calvados, Orne, Eure, Eure-et-Loir, Yvelines and Essonne, except in the north of Eure and locally in east of Calvados, was lifted Wednesday morning.
In the afternoon, temperatures painfully reached 3°C in the northern half of France, with no thaw for Nord-Pas-de-Calais, and could rise to 6°C in the south of the country. On Thursday, minimum temperatures will often be between ?5 and ?1°C in the northern half, between ?1 and 2°C in the south, with 3 to 6°C along the Mediterranean. The maximums will gain a few degrees to the north, with overall 2 to 4°C north of the Seine, 3 to 6°C in the West, 4 to 8°C in the South-West and up to 15°C on the French Riviera.
An orange flood alert is maintained in Pas-de-Calais for the evening of Wednesday and the day of Thursday.