For the first time we have received, and we live in N Brittany 22, a thunder storm warning from Orange and unless it’s a brilliant fake it seems genuine. All it tells us to do is switch off our live box and router if we get in “our area” as forecast severe thunderstorms in next 24 hours. It also included good general help pages covering outages due to electrical supply interruption.
Does anyone have experience of how accurate or common these warnings are and how local…ie what do they designate as an area…Commune, Dept’ or Region or some other geographical region
Keep an eye on Blitzortung John. It’s a real time site so shows you the lightening strikes as they happen and the lighten flashes start white on the site, then turn yellow and eventually red, so you can see the direction the storm is moving.
In our part of the world that is very useful as storms come up from Spain in our direction all the time but then very often either move west of us, heading up past Bordeaux or go east of us towards Agen and then up to the Massif Central.
Great bit of info’ thanks. Really like the interactive map, you’ve also answered my question, as of now there are yellow/goldish stars round the Channel islands guess this must have been our storm as we are on that northern coast
SF…the present that keeps on giving…( good things… unlike Brexit) sorry about the pun !
Previsions from France Meteo are generally very reliable. For example, I noted on my phone last night before going to bed that there was a yellow warning for thunder storms - and lo and behold, on going to bed, we could here the rumblings of the storm very close by.
As an aviator, I came to respect the weather indications from both France Meteo and the Met Office in their coded aviators format (which you have to learn for your licence) and similarly when flying in the USA where weather systems, winds etc can be very severe.
As for debranching all your equipment, we have our systems protected by UPS and the house electrical supply being new also has protections built in by default so we worry less now about storm warnings.
Not a fake of spam, we get them (the messages and the storms) frequently. Sending a message is much cheaper than repairing or replacing thousands of live boxes. Like @graham we protect sensitive stuff (livebox, pc etc) with a UPS which has surge protection for the phone line.
Very interesting i must see whether we have any protection on main system, but finding a good electrician is really difficult to get one in less than a couple of weeks. Also quite expensively for a general call out…
I use The Weather Channel. Weather.com. which has very good radar option and is free , though I pay 89c a month for add free option. Worth a look.
Then a UPS would seem a sensible idea John to protect your pc and router at least.
We bought this one to protect Vanessa’s PC and it would be man enough (or should I say, person enough) to handle your internet router as well and not too expensive but I’d advise not attaching a laser printer to it since that might take it over the top of its capacity.
We have something similar to this, takes some of the worry about thunderstorms away, when you’re not at home. Still a good idea to unplug the phone line though
We always have an early warning system just before any thunderstorms, it goes dead still then blows a hurricane for 5-10min before it hits, we always see my OH running for the washing when that happens
Don’t disagree but Orange (and others) have a solution for that (or used to) which you plug into the wall - perhaps at the point where your livebox is plugged in - which, if a 3 pin socket will take any strike to earth thus protecting your phone. More difficult (but still achievable with the old style phones though).
You have a line from the Livebox to the surge plug and then a further line from the surge plug to the phone unit so the surge plug is in the middle of the arrangement.
We do the same thing. We had one Livebox grilled. Since then we installed a UPS for the telephone line, one for the computer equipment and one for the heating system. They have all worked very well. Quite a lot of beeping warns us when the power has gone.
I think we’re too deep in a gorge of the Lot to be vulnerable to lightning, but several friends, in more open areas just a km up the river have had their boxes fried.
I once lived on top of a hill in in S Africa, a country that has a very high incidence of lightning and where local domestic wiring systems are designed to survive lightning strikes. One evening I’m in the living room, with picture windows on three sides and enjoying the customary electical storm with sheet lightning panoramically flashing around the horizon. But then suddenly the storm was directly overhead, there was a smell of electrical burning in the air and the next second a literally deafening thunderclap as a lightning bolt came out of the light over the dining table.
All the lights went out, I went to the fusebox, which had tripped, flicked the switch and everything was back to normal, except I couldn’t hear properly for about half an hour.
Just looking at the lightning tracker, looks pretty intense around Bordeaux tonight. Hope everyone’s ok:zap:
Lots of strikes happening east of Limoges now, so we’re probably going to get it soon too, time to unplug…
