Floods, intense rain, gusts… Storm Kirk will sweep France from west to east

WEATHER – The sky is black, ready to pour down a flood. Former Hurricane Kirk, which has become a storm, will sweep across France this Wednesday, October 9, causing “intense rain” from Vendée to Champagne-Ardenne and strong winds in the Pyrenees, Météo France alert.

30 departments are placed on orange vigilance in the forecaster’s bulletin, published at 6 a.m. Among these departments, 23 are placed on orange vigilance for “rain flood”four for « vent » (Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Hautes-Pyrénées, Loire and Rhône) and three for floods (Haute-Saône, Saône-et-Loire and Vosges), as you can see on the map below.

Red alert possible “in the south of Pays-de-la-Loire”

The amount of water that will fall from the sky this Wednesday will be particularly impressive. The equivalent of a month of precipitation is expected in one day in an axis going from Vendée to Lorraine via the Paris region, specifies Météo France.

In Pays-de-la-Loire, the first region affected by the center of the depression, between 60 and 80 mm, or even up to 90 mm of rain are locally expected during the day. In Loire-Atlantique, the rains will increase in intensity during the day, reaching 10 to 15 mm in an hour, according to a press release from the prefecture.

Also, “an increase in the level of vigilance” is not excluded “in the south of Pays de la Loire”warns Météo-France. Something to worry scientists, like the agroclimatologist Serge Zaka who writes about “his deep concern for all the regions between Nantes and La Roche-Sur-Yon. Many models indicate accumulations exceeding 100 mm in 48 hours, which could justify a Red vigilance level..

Gusts at “120 to 150 km/h” in the Pyrenees

The rains will gradually ease but « 40 à 60 mm » are still planned in the Paris basin and in Champagne-Ardenne and « 30 à 50 mm » near the Belgian border.

Stormy rain will also affect the Alpes-Maritimes in the evening. Currently on yellow alert, they could be placed on orange alert. Météo-France warns of the risk of flooding, due to “soils already very wet”.

The Pyrénées-Atlantiques and Hautes-Pyrénées have also been placed on orange vigilance for « vent »with gusts that can reach “120 to 150 km/h on the summits and 100 to 110 km/h in the valleys and plains”.

The Kirk storm which swept through France was originally a hurricane that left Cape Verde, which lost its “ tropical characteristics when encountering colder waters »explains weather forecaster Guillaume Woznica. The animation below retraces his journey.

Kirk continues the very wet trend of the year over most of mainland France. At the end of the rainiest month of September in 25 years, the average annual precipitation totals have already been exceeded almost everywhere in the country, in Nice, Saint-Nazaire, Strasbourg and even Le Mans and Paris.