Strong autumn storm Ciaran, which hit parts of north-western Europe, particularly along the French coast, on Wednesday night into Thursday, recorded record gusts of wind before it began to descend further north.
According to authorities in France, one person died when a tree fell on a truck in the north of the country, and two people were slightly injured in the west.
In Finistère, Brittany (west), wind speeds reached speeds of almost 200 km/h, causing power outages and fallen trees. However, no major damage was reported as of early morning.
Twenty-four of the 96 departments in mainland France were on alert on Thursday morning across the Atlantic coast and the English Channel (Normandy), as well as in the southeast and Corsica, Météo-France said in its 6 p.m. bulletin. (5 a.m. GMT).
“The strongest winds are currently affecting the Côtes-d’Armor (Brittany, editor’s note) and the English Channel,” states Météo-France, with gusts of 130-140 km/h inland and 150-170 km/h “on the coasts or even more so on the exposed capes. According to the bulletin, “the calm is gradually taking shape” and reaches Normandy around midday and the north by evening.
The transport sector will be disrupted on Thursday in the west of the country, where road traffic will be banned on Thursday morning in Finistère, at the tip of Brittany. Authorities on Wednesday requested the temporary closure of Breton’s Brest and Quimper airports for the evening and night.
According to the regional daily Ouest-France, the planes had to be diverted from Nantes (west) to Toulouse (southwest) on Wednesday evening due to the winds.
Trains disrupted
The railway is planning “preventive disruptions to rail traffic” on some trains in the Paris suburbs for Thursday morning. Regional train services in the west will be interrupted from Wednesday evening to Friday morning.
90% of high-speed trains will operate, although traffic will be suspended on certain routes between Paris and western cities.
In Brittany, numerous tree falls led to the temporary closure of certain main roads in Brittany and power outages. According to the operator, 1.2 million households were without electricity, including 780,000 in Brittany.
“The wind gusts over Brittany are exceptional and many absolute records are being broken,” noted Météo-France on site on X (formerly Twitter). During the night, the organization recorded top speeds of up to 193 km/h.
In addition to the winds, Météo-France fears a “rainy episode that will lead to significant amounts of precipitation in a short period of time on already saturated soils”.
French President Emmanuel Macron joined the numerous messages from the authorities on Wednesday evening urging caution in the face of this climatic event. “Do not take any risks. Stay home and check on your isolated loved ones,” he wrote on social media.
Extreme weather events (cyclones, heat waves, floods, droughts, etc.) are natural phenomena. But global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities can exacerbate them.