We moved the soft top Chrysler into the woodstore and I connected up the house water butts so that their overflow could be piped down into the underground water tank because Meteo France said Nouvelle Aquitaine was on orange alert this afternoon - hail, thunder storms, high winds.
After five drops of rain, no hail, no thunder, the sun has come out. And judging from the radar animation it’s all now headed north of us. Anyone get our share of the weather?
It was gusty all night here, but the warning on AccuWeather runs until 16:00 tomorrow.
It’s nowhere as windy as forecast here in 71.
Here in south 17 it’s been v windy, some rain and I can hear thunder at the moment. Only really want the rain!
Me too!
Here too. 3am on the veranda reshutting a set of shutters and a wooden door that had blown open. Small mutt came out with me and then woke the entire neighbourhood yelling at a nocturnal hedgehog down in the field.
Hoping tonight will be quieter.
Well, well. Just started to rain and looking a bit more serious this time. Fingers crossed Guy that Accuweather is right.
16m later - Nope, stopped again.
The cat has made a run for it. She can’t stand the noise of thunder indoors so heads outside…where surely it’s noisier and wetter?
Those warnings are useful but err on the side of extreme caution.
Whenever I see a Meteo France thunderstorm alert, I immediately go to lightningmaps.org. This shows the precise position of lightning strikes in real time (well, there’s a delay of 2-4 seconds) and gives you a much better idea of exactly where the storm is - and is likely to proceed.
At this precise moment, there’s a belt of sporadic storms about 30km in from the coast. However, I wouldn’t fancy being anywhere near Calais at the moment…
As to its accuracy, I’ve seen lighting strike a tree close to my home, then seen the same strike faithfully displayed on lighting maps 2 seconds later.
A bit blowy, but nowt else so far.
I think we got a good part of it here in 65. Very gusty wind since last night and several heavy rainfalls interspersed with beautiful sun and blue skies.
Huge thunderstorms here - so the warnings were correct.
Here in mid 24 we have had very heavy rain (thunder as well) and winds in the last hour - got soaked closing the shutters for the first time in ages!
Hum. Just looked yr.no website and Frogweather app.
Both look like 3. 5-4inches of rain each night overnight tonight, again tomorrow night and again Thursday night.
Depending on the night, all this lot falling within as little as 2 or as much as 6 hours.
Both those weather sources were recommended by posters on here - thank you . After dumping meteo.fr which would tell me I had bright sunshine whilst in the middle of a howling storm with the entire atmosphere suffused with sulforous yellow light and about 20 metres visibility.
Quite scary that yr. no is open about how much water is dumping on us… and this is quite mild compared to some times of year. I blame the Limousin. which is not too far North of this bit of the Lot. The grass all those cows eat there isn’t green for nothing. Just like NZ, really 
Hey Brian my new nerd app is Flightradar24.
For some reason it seems a lot more planes fly over here around midnight since the past 6 weeks or so.
I’ve discovered whenever I heard a plane, I just kick up the app and it tells me who owns it, what type of plane it is, how high it’s flying and where from and to.
Going to try it during the day when Airbus (is it Airbus or the French Air Force?) sends their black test fighter jets screaming over the house to see how fast they will go. Wonder if Flightradar24 will not be allowed to show what those are? I think some of them must be trying to go as fast as Corcorde. Guessing Airbus/whoever’s testing them must think no one lives in the Lot
Yes, I posted too soon. Same thing here. Huge storm late last night. Great for refilling the underground water tank. 
Flightradar is great for identifying what is flying around up there. Not much at the moment though, and we’re enjoying the beautiful silence. Par contre, the crazy French pilots are very much around and do not show up on FR as a rule. Do look out for the Airbus Beluga XLs which often come over en route between Toulouse and Hamburg. If you set up a receiver you get all the features of FR.
Have you seen their brilliant new graphical display @KarenLot ? Best presentation of weather progress over a few days that I’ve ever seen! So much more detail, clearly put and beats meteofrance hands down even if meteofrance was accurate, which here it most emphatically is not 
Our electricity was flickering on and off for some time.
Quite a blow.
Jim does the same so we know if we should disconnect the wi-fi.
Our dog hates the rain, indeed any type of water, she is a Border Collie cross.
She doesn’t mind having her coat on when she has to go out, but can’t stand having the hood on.