Written on January 24, 2009 at 3:16 pm by Jennie

Windstorm in the Southwest of France

Filed under Annecy, Chambéry & France {2 comments}

I don’t often associate severe or extreme weather with France, because they just don’t get the same types of storms that we have in the US. And that means I feel a little safer whenever I hear thunder or see the snow start to fall. It can’t possibly be as bad as tornadoes and blizzards that we get in Michigan, I always assume… but then I remember the windstorm of 1999 that killed over 100 people in France, Switzerland, and Germany. Wind was definitely something I never worried much about.

This weekend, the southwest of France is under “vigilance rouge” due to a windstorm. More than a million homes are without electricity, a new wind speed record has been set (184 kph or 114 mph), roads are blocked, and at least one person has died so far. The storm is supposed to continue through tomorrow as well.

I hope everybody stays safe and the wind dies down soon!

0saves

Save

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the RSS feed.

http://davidsswamp.blogspot.com/ David

I talked to my mom earlier today (she lives in the South West) and she told me about it, but it’s always hard for me to really know how bad it really is, because as you said, people are not used to extreme weather, so they tend to exaggerate, and concerning the damages, it’s not very telling either are people and things are just not prepared to more extreme weather than they’re used to.

The worst part being that the population was warned only yesterday when specialists (my cousin know people that are) had known it was coming for days.

It’s gonna be “interesting” in a few years when such extreme weather will be more and more common.

Davids last blog post..For all the techies out there…
http://davidsswamp.blogspot.com David

I talked to my mom earlier today (she lives in the South West) and she told me about it, but it’s always hard for me to really know how bad it really is, because as you said, people are not used to extreme weather, so they tend to exaggerate, and concerning the damages, it’s not very telling either are people and things are just not prepared to more extreme weather than they’re used to.

The worst part being that the population was warned only yesterday when specialists (my cousin know people that are) had known it was coming for days.

It’s gonna be “interesting” in a few years when such extreme weather will be more and more common.

Davids last blog post..For all the techies out there…