Météo-France has once again classified four northern departments in orange vigilance for high winds for Sunday evening February 20, just two days after the passage of storm Eunice.
The North, Pas-de-Calais, Somme and Seine-Maritime must be affected between 8 p.m. Sunday and 1 a.m. Monday by a “new stormy episode circulating rapidly, of less intensity than the recent storm Eunice, however requiring special vigilance”writes Météo-France in its Sunday morning bulletin.
This new gale, baptized Franklin, will be marked by a “very active cold front” with gusts “generally between 100 and 110 kilometers per hour with possible peaks at 120 or even 130 kilometers per hour”associated with strong waves on the Channel coast.
TER links interrupted in the north and in Normandy
Franklin must hit departments where trees and infrastructure are already weakened by the passage Friday afternoon of storm Eunice, accompanied by very violent gusts, even inland.
At noon on Sunday, twenty-five thousand homes in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais had not yet been able to be supplied with electricity. “More than a thousand technicians and partner companies of Enedis remain mobilized in difficult conditions, in particular due to strong winds still in progress, numerous tree falls and significant damage caused to the electricity network”emphasizes the operator.
Some connections by TER must also be suspended on Sunday evening. “Traffic will be interrupted this Sunday, February 20, from 7 p.m. on the coast (Calais, Boulogne, Dunkirk, Abbeville)”, warned on its Twitter account the TER network of Hauts-de-France, already strongly disturbed until Saturday afternoon by the damage of Eunice. From “disruptions, deletions and delays” are also scheduled for Monday, February 21.
In Normandy, the SNCF has planned to interrupt traffic from 10 p.m. on several of its TER lines, in particular Rouen-Le Havre, Caen-Cherbourg and Lisieux-Trouville.