03 February 2017

Tempête !

Well, at least I don't have to worry about the greenhouse this morning. This afternoon it might be a different story, but it will be during daylight hours. A storm is moving into northern France, affecting Brittany and eastern Normandy this morning, but moving westward toward Touraine and Paris.


It's not yet clear from the forecasts how hard the wind might blow. The biggest risk to the greenhouse, which is located on the side of the house that bears the brunt of the wind, is an airborne tree branch.


MétéoFrance has put Brittany and the other areas already feeling the effects of the storm under « vigilance orange ». As you can see on the map above, Saint-Aignan and Paris are in the yellow warning zone — but that will probably change for the worse as the day goes on.


We hope our house and all our big trees will withstand it. Unless we have winds over 60 mph, we'll likely be fine. Winds out on the coast, some 250 miles east of Tours and Saint-Aignan are already around 80 mph.


Even wind that strong might not cause any damage. But we and the house are vulnerable to high winds coming from the west, and that's where the weather is coming from today.

13 comments:

  1. I hope everything has passed through by now, and you and the greenhouse have come through it fine. I remember your former leaks in the kitchen ceiling... at least you don't have to worry about that anymore, right?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's raining but not too hard, and it's blustery. We haven't had any leaks for a few years now. Ouf!

      Delete
  2. I will hope your weather man is like the one we had in NY .... the warnings ! the dire predictions and always a small but nothing terrible storm .. Just be sure things can fly around and break windows.
    And be sure you hang on to each other so you don't fly away to Oz lol .... not Australia, Oz ... wizards etc with your little dog.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's a lot of that here too. I think sometimes that MétéoFrance goes for the worst-case scenario. Covering their derrières, as it were. When the weather is better than predicted, they can breathe easy. If it's worse, there's hell to pay.

      Delete
  3. Replies
    1. So far so good. The wind seems to be picking up right now, at 4 p.m.

      Delete
  4. Replies
    1. Hunkering is best done by candlelight with a good wine and something chocolate. just in case you forgot that important bit of info.

      Delete
  5. Keeping fingers crossed here for you!
    Our weather forecasts in the UK, as well as being more accurate, are more likely to predict worse weather than the reality, ever since the famous incident in 1987 when the BBC weather man forecast a storm that wouldn't amount to much but turned out to be extremely severe. It caused several deaths and the end of six of the oaks in a place dalled Sevenoaks in Kent, which afterwards had only one of its ancient oaks still standing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is a contradiction contained in your comment. How can the UK forecasts be "more accurate" while being "more likely to predict worse weather than the reality." That sounds like a distinction without a difference compared to the MétéoFrance forecasts.

      Actually, so far today we've had a few gusts of wind and some light rain. Tant mieux.

      Delete
  6. I went to my Google Translate to see what Tante mieux was, it said < Better Aunt > lol .... Tante pis :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tant means "so much" and mieux means "better" — "so much the better." Tante with a final E means "aunt."

      Delete

What's on your mind? Qu'avez-vous à me dire ?