This Friday, Bayonne (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) had its feet in the water.
The Nive has reached an unprecedented level.
About fifty people had to be evacuated from the district located at the confluence of this river and the Adour.
Over the loudspeakers, calls for caution have replaced Christmas carols.
The rugby match between Aviron Bayonnais and US Montauban, scheduled for Friday evening at the Jean-Dauger stadium, has been canceled.
Eighteen schools and two colleges in the department were closed, roads cut, hundreds of homes were left without electricity.
Friday afternoon, all the Pyrénées-Atlantiques were placed in raw red vigilance like the neighboring Landes where four municipalities were evacuated.
In six departments of the South-West, as in three departments of the Alps, downpours and snow have been pouring out since Thursday.
Precipitation is expected to continue through Saturday.
VIDEO.
Floods, avalanches, 11 departments on alert
A moisture corridor in direct line to the Caribbean
Blame it on… a "flying river", explain the meteorologists.
"It is in fact a long corridor of humidity, several kilometers above sea level, which arrives from the Caribbean on Europe", explains Brigitte Robert, forecaster at Météo France.
The phenomenon occurs when all the depressions that bring hot air up from the equatorial belt to our latitudes are aligned.
But then it is necessary for this accumulated humidity to turn into precipitation.
This is the case when the flying river, also called "atmospheric river", stumbles on the Pyrenees.
It does not pass the reliefs and the rains accumulate, "as in a basin", compares Brigitte Robert.
Here is the "flying river" which will be responsible for a remarkable rainy episode in the extreme southwest of the country, an avalanche flood in the Pyrenees, a magnificent snowy episode in the eastern massifs.
Final bouquet of a sacred sequence of undulating current of NO.
pic.twitter.com/29PMR2OtA3
- Francois Jobard (@Francois_Jobard) December 9, 2021
Not unprecedented, the episode is however "remarkable" this time, points out the forecaster, in particular for the quantities of water which fell.
Laruns, a Bearn village of a thousand inhabitants, recorded Thursday its absolute maximum of rain that fell in one day (187 mm).
In Cambo-les-Bains, closer to the Atlantic, with 97 mm on Thursday, the station broke its 1972 record for a rain in December.
At altitude, dozens of centimeters of snow fell.
In the Pyrenees, where there are 2 m of powder at 2000 m, it is "an excess situation", as the forecaster reports.
In the Alps too.
“In Albertville (Savoie) for example, it fell 31 cm Thursday in five hours And it continues!
»Wonders Brigitte Robert.
However, with the warmth that will weaken the coat, Météo France also warns about the risk of avalanches in both areas until Saturday.
