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WEATHER

Five dead after violent storms and flooding in southern France

Five people have died and three people, including two children, are missing after violent storms swept the south of the country on Saturday morning.

Published: 10 March 2024 13:43 CET
Updated: 11 March 2024 14:42 CET
Five dead after violent storms and flooding in southern France
Photo: DAMIEN MEYER/AFP.

The body of an adult man was found on Monday morning in the Gard département of southern France, bringing the official death toll up to five victims after intense storms and floods over the weekend.

Another victim of the storm was an 87-year-old man who drowned in the Herault river. His body was found Monday stuck between tree branches around 20 metres from his car.

The local authorities also tweeted on Monday morning that 110 firefighters and 120 gendarmes were working to find those still missing. 

A man and his two children, aged four and 13, were still missing on Monday afternoon.

The family of four were caught in the floods while trying to drive across a bridge over the river Gardon in the village of Dions, north of the city of Nimes, the prefecture said.

Local authorities had not yet confirmed whether the body discovered on Monday belonged to the father, but it was discovered approximately 2km from the bridge in Dions, the head of the local gendarmerie told French media France Bleu.

The mother, 40, who was also in the car, was found by rescuers and taken to hospital.

A 70-year-old man in the neighbouring département of Ardeche was still missing as of Monday. The manager of a hydroelectric power station in the village of Saint Martin de Valamas, he had gone in to check on the facility on Saturday evening.

On Sunday, rescue workers discovered the body of a Belgian man, who was located a few hundred metres away from where his car had been swept away. He had been missing since Saturday evening.

The public prosecutor in Alès has opened an investigation into the man’s cause of death. The road had been closed and a police officer had told the driver not to drive on the bridge, officials said.

A passenger in his vehicle, also Belgian, managed to get out and take refuge in a tree, before being rescued after more than two hours amid the branches.

Two women aged 47 and 50, previously reported missing, were also found dead in the town of Goudargues in the Gard département. 

On Sunday evening, “their vehicle was found with two bodies inside”, the Nîmes public prosecutor announced, adding that autopsies would be carried out at the Nîmes forensic institute on Monday.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Sunday that rescuers had carried out a total of 35 operations as the storm and torrential rains swept across the Ardèche and Gard departments. 

The préfecture in Gard expressed regret that despite multiple warnings about the incoming storm, “we still see behaviour that is dangerous, first of all for the people themselves but also dangerous for the people whose duty it is to come to their aid.”

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ENVIRONMENT

How likely are droughts and water restrictions in France in summer 2024?

Much of France has faced severe flooding this winter, but other areas already face water restrictions, and there's an extra variable in store global weather patterns play their part

Published: 12 April 2024 17:50 CEST
How likely are droughts and water restrictions in France in summer 2024?

France’s Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM) most recent report, in early March, revealed that the water table in France was ‘satisfactory over a large part of the country’, with levels above normal for the time of year in 46 percent of the country’s underground aquifers.

It warned at the time, however, that levels were low to very low in parts of Alsace, as well as in the Saône corridor and areas of Languedoc, from the south of the Massif Central to the coast, and the Roussillon area of southwest France.

March, too, was a wet month across the bulk of France – it was the fifth wettest since records began in 1958, according to national forecaster Météo-France.

Crucially however, most of the rain falling on the ground in France now will be gobbled up by vegetation, which means that very little water will make it through to aquifers. The groundwater recharge period, when underground water tables are refilled, is now over until late autumn 2024.

Basically, the water table is about as high as it’s going to get this summer.

Which brings us back to the weather.

Long-range forecasts are notoriously inaccurate but after a mild, wet winter, forecasters expect another dry, warm summer overall, following a cooler-than-normal and occasionally wet spring.

April, for example, is set to be marked by cool spells, though, for the April-May-June quarter as a whole, temperatures are expected to remain above seasonal averages. Forecasters warn that a higher-than-usual number of Spring storms could affect the south-east of the country.

Long-range models suggest, however, that June could be hot and dry, with consequences for agriculture – though groundwater levels should be high enough to cope comfortably.

Forecasting further into the summer is even less certain than normal because – over in the Pacific – El Nino is expected to be replaced by La Nina much faster than normal, making weather prediction difficult. 

The consensus is, however, that the cooling effect of La Nina will not be felt until much later in the year. That said, it will have a more immediate effect on weather activity in the North Atlantic. Forecasters are already predicting a record-breaking hurricane season – which will have an effect on French weather patterns.

Between May and July, forecast temperatures in France are likely to remain 1C to 2C above seasonal averages. Precipitation is expected to be fairly close to average, with a tendency for thunderstorms, especially in the south.

Forecast models predict a wet end to April, a fine and dry May, a hot and occasionally thundery June, and a warmer-than-normal July punctuated by thunderstorms – though some forecasts suggest more mixed weather in the north in the seventh month.

With water tables currently well recharged, the national water situation for the summer is, right now, giving experts little cause for concern. 

Thunderstorms are expected to provide occasional watering to limit surface drought, which is always possible even if water tables are well recharged. The summer of 2024 therefore looks set to be different from recent droughts. 

However, this is not to say water restrictions are not impossible, or even unlikely. In certain areas, notably the Aude and Pyrénées-Orientales, where rainfall has been well below average for years, the situation is already serious.

While the rest of the country saw high rainfall in March, these two départements were recording 50 percent less rain than normal.

These areas are already facing a range of water restrictions. To find out whether restrictions are in place where you live, consult the Vigieau website, which offers information on a national, regional and local level.

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