Wind, rain, low temperatures: “more wintry” weather expected this weekend across France

Météo-France has placed eleven departments on orange alert before the Darragh storm, and anticipates temperatures slightly below seasonal norms.

Gloves and umbrellas will be out – wind permitting. It’s a “unsettled and more wintry weather” which will settle in France on Saturday December 7 and Sunday December 8, warns Météo-France in a bulletin published Friday.

On the program, violent winds in eleven departments with the passage of the Darragh storm, snow “in significant quantities” in the mountains and particularly in the Pyrenees, as well as temperatures below seasonal norms in most of France.

It is the north-west of the country which will suffer the greatest disruptions. Nine coastal departments are placed on orange “wind” vigilance on Saturday from 6 a.m., awaiting the Darragh storm: Aude, Calvados, Côtes-d’Armor, Finistère, Ille-et- Vilaine, Manche, Morbihan, Pas-de-Calais, Pyrénées-Orientales, Seine-Maritime and Somme.

Of the “locally stormy showers near the coast” are expected, with wind gusts ranging from 90 to 110 km/h are expected during the storm inland, and between 100 and 120 km/h on windy coasts – even “130 km/h or more on exposed capes” from Brittany to the English Channel. The wind “weakens slightly at the end of the day, but remains strong during the night from Saturday to Sunday and during the day on Sunday”anticipates Météo-France. For safety reasons, trains scheduled for Saturday and Sunday are canceled “across the entire Normandy territory”as well as “on certain lines in the Brittany, New Aquitaine and Pays de la Loire regions”details the SNCF on its website.

In the south, Aude and the Pyrénées-Orientales are also on orange alert for risk of wind, with a strengthening of the tramontane as it passes Darragh and gusts ranging from 120 to 130 km/h. New Aquitaine is not left out, since showers and gusts of 90 to 110 km/h could occur “until the middle of the night from Saturday to Sunday”.

The Paris region is not spared. Showers “sometimes sustained” are expected Saturday afternoon and evening, and winds between 55 and 80 km/h. Bad weather disrupts the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris: the entire ceremony will take place “inside the cathedral” due to weather conditions “very unfavorable”announced the Elysée and the diocese of Paris on Friday evening.

From Sunday, it’s a time “winter” which will be put in place according to Météo-France. Temperatures will drop below seasonal norms, “but without excess”and the thermometer will reach between 2 and 10°C over most of France.

Snow is even expected in the mountains “in significant quantities” Sunday, as well as Monday. In the Pyrenees, snow could fall from 600 meters above sea level, with at least 30 cm of snow expected above 800 meters. In other mountain ranges, you will have to exceed 1,000 meters in altitude to see snowflakes falling. This winter episode could end from Tuesday, since “the more anticyclonic conditions will favor the return of drier and moderately cold weather”.