Extreme weather conditions in Aquitaine and the Midi-Pyrénées


Over 800 engineers have been working throughout the night in an attempt to restore power to 50,000 households in Aquitaine and the Midi-Pyrénées. Electricity grid company ERDF said wind speeds of up to 115kph were responsible for the outage with flying branches and debris knocking down power lines; telephone communications, especially the mobile networks have also been hit. Staff from neighbouring regions have been drafted in to help.


The storm warning put out by Météo-France yesterday has been extended to Saturday morning. The Tarn and Haute-Garonne are likely to be hardest hit but the warning also covers the Dordogne, Lot-et-Garonne, Tarn-et-Garonne, Aveyron, Lot and Gers areas and residents have been advised to stay inside if possible and to be aware of the potential dangers from falling trees.


All public parks and gardens have been closed in Toulouse to avoid possible injuries and Météo-France have advised that gusts could reach 125kph on higher ground.


In a separate incident, nearly 90,000 Parisian households in the 13th and 14th arrondissements were left without power for around 30 minutes yesterday evening following a problem at a sub-station.


Has your area been affected by this extreme weather?


Thanks Julie for thinking of me ;)

Lourdes is in a real state. Apparently this hasn't happened for over 25 years. The last flooding that I remember was in 2010 which was bad enough but this is extreme. The firemen took 7 hours to empty the hotel of water and they are coming back tomorrow to try and shift the 10 cm of sludge that is everywhere below the reception. The electrics in the whole hotel have blown which is really spooky once it gets dark. Only the directors flat escaped although the gas was cut off for safety reasons.

For those of you that haven't met me (just about everyone apart from Roger and Maria lol), I had 10 seconds of fame on France 2 and somehow it ended up on BBC News although what I actually said appears to have gotten lost in translation!!! I apparently own a hotel, albeit a flooded one lol!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20019917

I hope everyone else is ok and that you are not suffering too much inconvenience. Love & Light - Namaste

i chose a very heavy shower to try to properly restack some of my hives, poor bees must have been drowning... Then the sun came out and we actually got a washing load out and DRY!! But oh no, there are a few gusts about and a branch that must have been just ready to fall fell across two hives, so there I was again restacking two of them. Guess what? The heavens opened as I was standing there with my smoker running out, two hives dismantled and then I broke the record for putting them back together and have put webbing round them to tie them together... Now I am drooked, the bees are angry but the washing is in. Am I gonna ache tomorrow though!

Seems that this time we have got away pretty lightly usually get flooding in the basement its not happened, yet, just lost a tree didnt hear the thunder until about 6.00am but there again with a clear conscience is sleep well, its the lightning the dogs dont like and as the shutters were closed that wasnt a problem isnt today the end of the storms or have we got more to come

Pretty foul here. No wind or rain but clouds down around and wetter than rain! No shinning up ladders to check dishes with my dodgy shoulder then.

Here is the latest

http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2012/10/20/1470059-trois-jours-de-vents-violents-le-bilan-en-midi-pyrenees.html#xtor=EPR-1

We have a micro climate here in the southern Mayenne. Rarely have extremes of weather, long warm summers and short cold winters. But last night, did we have a storm. Fortunately no damage - nothing like people here are describing - just noisy. Funnily enough though, the wind is warm and it really has got warm this evening so I shall stand warned!

Move to Burgundy, we have a fairly temperate climate which is not affected as much by the prevailing Atlantic winds.

Dept. 64 just north of Pau. Seemed to missed all the excitement! It has been raining steadily today but I was in the veg garden yesterday and had a sun-burned head.

The wind has been extremely warm, quite weird here - I hope you are right Susan, but don't get lulled , the forecast is for tempete over the weekend although all is calm at the moment!

We had dreadful gales Wednesday and Thursday night in Tarn et Garonne and a power cut last night at 8pm. We were convinced that there were no fools mad enough to repair the cables in the dark and with such strong winds but lo and behold our electricity was back by 10.30. We took the kids to school this morning and had to hang around for a few hours to do our duty selling cakes at the market to raise funds for a school trip. By the time we were coming home, all the roads had been swept and clear of debris. Very impressed... All nice and calm now.

Here in the Tarn et Garonne we've had our share too with telephone poles down on the hill up to the village- more forecast for tomorrow!!

In the Lot dept 46 we have had multiple outages over the last 48 hrs, several lasting around 4 hrs at a time, very high winds with lots of trees down.

One girl put on TV and all three receivers get nothing, the fixed dish might have moved a bit but the motorised one compensates and no signals from anything.

Here in dept 81 Roumegoux near Albi, this is the first I have access to the internet for two days. Power cuts, no telephone and our garden shed is a mess, hope it's over soon, I can't stand having no communication.

For the Tarn/Tarn & Garonne and nearby people who find the wind strangely warm and may not have yet experienced this.

When the wind here is strong and warm, it is usually the Vent d'Autan coming up from North Africa. Some years, when it blows for weeks on end, you find that house dust is yellowish! No kidding, desert dust crosses the med and ends up in my house!

And according to local lore, it drives people mad and is called Le vent des fous. Here is an old article from La Depeche

http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2000/11/29/275607-le-vent-d-autan-rend-il-fou.html

Even so we must be grateful.....Provence gets the Mistral and that comes from the north. Brrrrrrrr

Vent d'Autan blowing at 125Kph in Sorèze/Dourgne......power cuts only lasting a few seconds. Apparently it will slow down to about 80kph in the next day or so. Then no doubt the rain will come!

Have just been shopping for a neighbour who is too fragile to go out when the VdA blows.....she is a tiny little thing and it sweeps her off her feet!

Wow, looks like the Haute-Loire (43) isn't so bad after all. Lots of wind, but no rain, floodings, tornados or snow. We're just hoping the roof holds out.

The fireman have just arrived to pump the lake that has formed downstairs back outside!! It's thankfully only the second time in 3 years but it leaves a huge mess behind that takes about a month to put right.

I've just been told that as it's raining so hard, they've decided to leave things as they are and come back in the morning as it will only flood again during the night!! By tomorrow morning the water will almost be up to the reception level if that carries on. Just got to explain to everyone that they won't have any hot water for the forseeable....

Same here Julie up in the Montagne Noir a bit of a blow on tree down in the garden spent Monday Tuesday tidying now it looks like a bomb site goats havent shown their faces since Wednesday afternoon occassionaly a little face appears round the door and quickly goes in again not venturing out yet more sense than the dogs they are out regardless, surprised we havent had a power cut though a lot of electrical work has been done in the local area in fact putting in a new sub station or something similar at the moment taken all the fun out of life a power cut half way through Emmerdale or Corrie