Bad weather: thunderstorms and torrential rains in the southwest, historical precipitation in Agen – LCI

Downpours. Several departments have been placed on orange vigilance by Météo-France, thunderstorms of a rare intensity hit the southwest of France this Wednesday evening. The stormy line, which was positioned between the east of Aquitaine and the west of Occitanie, brought a lot of rain.

Lot-et-Garonne is particularly affected by this precipitation. In Agen, for example, an absolute record of rains – the equivalent of two months of precipitation in three hours – fell on Agen on Wednesday evening, causing flooding and safety.

“With 129.6 mm”, these accumulations constitute “an absolute record in 24 hours on this station” Agen, Météo-France said. This volume of water represents the equivalent of 18% of the annual rainfall in the region. The previous record was 73.6 mm on February 12, 1990 since the opening of the station in 1941. It’s simple, such values ​​have never been reached in Lot-et-Garonne.

According to several witnesses and the Lot-et-Garonne prefecture, which activated a crisis unit, there was up to 1 m of water in some streets in Agen. On his Twitter account, the town hall of Agen indicated that the city “experienced a rainy episode of exceptional intensity with more than 2 meters of water in some streets”.

According to a report from the prefecture overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, “The damage is material at this time and no injured or deceased person is to be deplored”.

“There were 130 interventions by the firefighters at 11:30 p.m. and 20 people were brought to safety”, added a statement. Some 60 firefighters were mobilized to answer more than 150 calls.

In the Allier or the Gers, the volumes of water that fell on Wednesday are also considerable (more than 60 mm).

In the middle of the night “the stormy axis which particularly affected the east of Aquitaine is slowly shifting to the east”, specifies the bulletin, from Gers and Haute-Garonne to Lot, “always giving significant intensities and accumulations” with nevertheless “rainy waves” who “weaken a little”. At 3:27 am, only five departments of Occitanie remained placed on orange alert for violent storms.