2023-09-14 17:32:44
A strong storm occurred late Tuesday afternoon in the Pyrénées-Orientales. France blue reports that this phenomenon was accompanied by intense rain and hail, which caused damage and flooding. This video allows you to visualize the virulence of the storm when it was near the town of Thuir. Strong wind gusts, sometimes exceeding 100 km/h, also occurred.
???? 18h50 – #Thunderstorm violence underway in the Pyrénées-Orientales near Thuir. It heads towards the southern part of Perpignan.
Grosse #hail and violent gusts of wind are reported. Caution !
Video: Chris Sirjl for Météo Languedoc pic.twitter.com/j72ccf9Iji
— Météo Languedoc (@MeteoLanguedoc) September 12, 2023
In Thuir, several roads in the town were flooded. Some were even cut off, which made traffic in the surrounding area complicated.
In Canohès, hail increased the volume of water which surged through certain streets. “It feels like a ski resort, as if it had snowed,” reacted the mayor. He describes “an avalanche of water and hail lasting ten minutes”. The ceiling of the village hall collapsed, houses were flooded with up to 30 cm of water, and dozens of cars were damaged.
A train broke down in Ille-sur-têt. The Terrats and Corneilla-del-Vercol sectors also suffered damage. The Perpignan region was also affected by these bad weather. A Decathlon store notably had to be evacuated, according to The Independent. Significant water infiltration was occurring there.
The vineyards also suffered from this bad weather, the Pyrénées-Orientales wine growers’ union reported this Wednesday afternoon, reports Agence France Presse (AFP). In the communes of Pollestres and Trouillas, winegrowers “lost 80% of the growing crop. There remains 20% in a sector already affected by drought which had lost 30% of its production,” according to the president of this union, David Drilles. “It’s a big wine sector, there are a lot of wine growers affected. There are also some” in another valley in the department, he said. The drought also risks having consequences beyond the 2023 vintage: winegrowers fear that the plants, exhausted by the lack of rain this year, will die or produce even less fruit next year.
The Occitanie region is not the only one to have suffered from storms on Wednesday. In the middle of the afternoon, the city of Dijon, in the Côte-d’Or department, also found itself under a violent storm. Streets were flooded and trees fell, according to The public good.
This Wednesday, new storms began to break out. Meteo France places the center and east of France on yellow alert (level 2 out of 4). A total of 35 departments are affected by this call for caution.
/Meteo France
Keraunosthe observatory for tornadoes and violent storms, estimates that these storms “could produce abundant and lasting rain, and locally generate hail, particularly around the Massif Central and the Jura”.
#Floods #hail #lost #vines #storm #damage #PyrénéesOrientales