While only Pas-de-Calais is currently on orange flood alert, Météo-France will place, on Saturday, November 4 in the evening, twelve additional departments at this alert level as the storm Domingos approaches. The event will cause “violent gusts of wind” on the Atlantic coast, meteorologists announced in their latest bulletin.
Domingos, a priori “less severe” according to Météo-France, could however cause new damage in areas already affected by the intense rains and strong gusts of storm Ciaran, which claimed the lives of three people in France.
Vendée, Deux-Sèvres, Vienne, Charente-Maritime, Charente and Gironde will go into orange vigilance for the winds from 6 p.m. Charente-Maritime, Gironde, Bouches-du-Rhône and Var will also be placed on alert for wave-submersion at the same time. Corsica-du-Sud and Haute-Corse will be placed on rain-flood alert at 7 p.m., while Corrèze and Dordogne will be on orange alert for the risk of flooding. A fourteenth department, the Alpes-Maritimes, will switch to orange wave-submersion vigilance early on Sunday.
“For Ciaran, we had gusts of 150, 170 kilometers per hour [km/h] and even peaks beyond that. There, we are a notch below, explains Loïs Pourchet, Météo-France forecaster. Nevertheless, it remains a stormy episode which brings very strong winds to already fragile regions. » The public body forecasts sustained winds with gusts of 130 km/h on the coasts, or even locally a little more, and 110 km/h inland.
Furthermore, “inland, wind gusts occasionally exceeding 100 km/h may affect the neighboring departments of those placed on orange wind alert. (…) They could particularly concern Loire-Atlantique, Limousin, then reach the Center and Auvergne,” explained the meteorological institute in its bulletin.
Transportation disrupted
The Atlantic Maritime Prefecture has called for “caution” and to postpone any sea trips. It predicts sea force 6 or 7 and waves of 4 to 9 meters on the Atlantic coast.
On the continent, soils saturated with water from the successive passages of storms Céline and Ciaran, and trees weakened by wind and bad weather, raise fears of further damage, despite the lesser intensity of Domingos.
Transport is also very disrupted and, “for safety reasons”, no trains will run on the La Rochelle-Bordeaux, La Rochelle-Poitiers, Niort-Royan and Bordeaux – Le Verdon-sur-Mer routes between Saturday 6 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. , according to SNCF.
Despite these disruptions, returns from the All Saints’ Day holidays this weekend will be “ensured” by the SNCF, promised the Minister for Transport, Clément Beaune.