The Eleanor storm, fourth since early December, hit Brittany and the Channel on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday. Wind gusts over 180 km/h are expected.
The Eleanor storm that has swept half of France touched in the night from Tuesday 2nd to Wednesday 3rd January, 2018 from Brittany and the Channel with winds over 100 km/h announced by Meteo France. The weather agency has extended the orange alert to 51 departments in the morning.
Forty-six of these are affected by a high wind warning alert and three for the potential of “waves flooding.” The Charente-Maritime and Gironde are on flood alert.
TEMPÊTE #ELEANOR : 51 départements désormais en alerte orange.
144 km/h enregistrés au sommet de la Tour Eiffel, +130 km/h dans le Morbihan, les Hauts-de-France, 147 km/h à Cambrai (59). pic.twitter.com/26oVEMxrWY— Infos Françaises (@InfosFrancaises) 3 January 2018
147 km/h in the North
Gusty winds to 116 km/h to Anneville-sur-Mer (Manche) to 109 km/h on the Ile-de-Bréhat (Côtes d’Armor) at 95 km/h at Le Havre (Seine maritime) were recorded at 2am, said Meteo France in Rennes.
On the coastal areas of the north, where Eleanor arrived shortly after, maximum gusts of 135 km/h at Cape Gris Nez, 129 km/h at Boulogne, 119 km/h at Abbeville and 108 km/h at Dunkerque, were recorded.
In the interior, these values have reached 147 km/h at Cambrai-Epinoy (North), 120 km/h at Saint-Arnoult (Oise), 111 km/h to Rouvroy-en-Santerre (Somme), 107 km/h in Aulnois-sous-Laon (Aisne), 106 km/h to Lillers (Pas-de-Calais), 107 km/h to Reims.
Normandy Bridge closed to many vehicles
Because of these bursts, the movement of motorhomes, vehicles towing a caravan, high sided trucks, motorcycles and pedestrians is prohibited in both directions on the Normandy Bridge and the Grand Canal viaduct in departments of Eure and Seine-Maritime, said Traffic monitoring.
Winds southwest sector west should continue to gust in the coming hours in the Channel, also reaching 90 to 110 km/h within the northern land Brittany to Normandy and north of the centre, and up to 110 to 120 km/h or 130 km/h very locally on the coasts. Then Eleanor will spread to the northeast of the Hexagon and Corsica on Wednesday morning.
In the Northern Alps, winds will be strengthened especially from Wednesday morning to reach 100 km/h in the mountains, at middle elevations (ski resorts) and 120 km/h to 180 km/h at higher altitudes .
The Val Thorens (Savoy) announced the closure of the upper part of the ski area on Wednesday and Thursday, the wind in addition to the exceptional snow falls expected.
Up to 200km/h in Corsica
In Corsica, from midday Wednesday and in the evening, the winds become “violent”, with expected gusts of 180 to 200 km/h on the Corsica Cape and Cape Sagro, and from 120 to 150km / h around Bastia on the southeast coast of Solenzara in Porto-Vecchio. “A drop in intensity is expected late Wednesday night through Thursday,” said Meteo France.
Faced with this storm coming from the north of Ireland. Almost all departments of the north coast of Finistere in Pas-de-Calais, are placed second in vigilance orange wave-submersion.
In a context of strong tidal coefficients, waves may indeed cause flooding phenomena “particularly intense”.
The weather risks have already led France Galop to see Thursday and Friday the eight horse races scheduled Wednesday at Deauville racecourse (Calvados).
Ana, Bruno, Carmen …
Eleanor is the fourth storm to hit the country since the beginning of December, after Ana, Bruno and Carmen . The latter left France on the night of Monday to Tuesday, after sweeping especially Brittany, the Atlantic coast and Corsica, with gusts over 130 km/h.
Several thousand homes were without electricity due to the storm and a wind Turbine of 62 meters collapsed in Vendée. Before his arrival, the winds had caused the death of a Sunday man killed in his car by a falling tree .
Over 4,000 inhabitants of ten of Seine Maritime are also deprived of water because tap rainfall of recent days, which made it unfit for consumption.
“David” could be the next storm
Since December 1st, Meteo France and its Spanish and Portuguese counterparts baptize storms that may affect any of the three countries, according to a list of names drawn up in cooperation and in alphabetical order.
“David” was next on the list, but the new system also provides that in cases affecting first storm of Ireland or Britain, is the name chosen by their services that is required. Eleanor was baptized by Irish weather service, Meteo France noted, reserving the possibility of using “David” for an upcoming storm.
