News: France Flood

France Flooding

Southern parts of France experienced some of the worst flooding in more than a century on June 15-16, 2010.

CloudSat passed through central France at 1255 UTC right before the storm started to develop. Although the CloudSat overpass does not reveal the heavy rain during the storm, it does reveal the mid-tropospheric flow (~500-700mb) over the area moving northward by the stretching of the clouds from the ocean to land. Warm, moist air from the Mediterranean is being pushed up towards the coast of southern France. With relatively weak upper level winds, storm motion was limited resulting in heavy rains over the same area. 350 mm (14 inches) fell in just a few hours triggering a violent flash food.