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Terrible thunderstorm on July 15th 2003 in Ingrandes (49 - France )
From
the top of my eighteen years old, this has been the worst thunderstorm
I have
ever experienced! It
is Tuesday July 15th 2003. The previous days had been relatively hot
and that
particular day sticks to the rule with a maximum temperature around
33°Celcius
(91,40°F) . In the evening, as I am having dinner with my
parents, we watch the
weather forecast on TV. Maine and Loire, the area where we live, is
under
thunder alert, as most of the French counties (departments) is along
the
Atlantic coast. It
is now 9:30pm, the air is stifling. The sky is already chaotic and the
thermometer still shows a temperature around 30°C
(86°F). We can already hear
thunder quite at a distance but my parents do not seem that worried,
nor am I.
As a matter of fact, thunders are not that violent but loud enough to
disturb
us from watching our film! I can swear it… 11pm :
the film is finished, the air is still stifling with a temperature
close to
28°C (82,40°F). Strangely enough, there are not any
more electric activities in
the sky! I am all the more disappointed since I had been hoping I could
contemplate this natural firework after the film… It is all
too quiet by then;
really disappointed, I decide to retreat to my bedroom. It
is so sticky in my room that I cannot get to sleep. So I finally pick
up a
Disney comic strip and start reading. Time
flies and I am still deep into the comic strips. Suddenly I hear
something
which could sound like thunder! I look at my alarm clock: it is 11:50
pm! How
late for a thunderstorm! I open the shutters of my room and indeed I
can see
the fireworks in the far south. It is still quite far from my house at
the
moment but it gives quite an idea of what may happen next. At midnight,
thunder
gets loud. It doesn’t rain but there is now a show of
lightening in the
southern sky! I start freaking out. I hide under the sheet of my bed; I
certainly could not read anymore. 00 :15
pm. It starts
raining and rapidly rain
turns into downpouring. The wind rises, blows hard and a real storm
blows out.
Flashes go non stop, thunder is incredibly loud, rain is pouring
down… Quickly,
with my parents, we head to the garage. Our yard being slightly
downward, all
the water coming from the rain gets into the gutter and over it, to
find itself
in the garage. This is what usually happens when violent rain does not
stop.
Unfortunately this is what is actually happening: within two or three
minutes,
the garage is flooding. My father, my mother and I do what we can to
get rid of
the water with brooms and buckets. Outside the fury is still on and our
house
trembles with each thunderbolt.  It
is now 00:45am. My sister calls me on my portable. Twenty kilometres
away
toward east, the weather is also on fury. A tree has fallen down over
the car
of her parents-in-law. Their cellar is flooding with 30/40 centimetres
of
water. Here, the storm goes on and on. The violent wind tears away the
tiles of
my neighbour’s roof. My family and I keep fighting against
the flooding in the
garage, to protect the best we can the electric appliances, for outside
the
deluge is still pouring down. 1:05am.
The thunderstorm goes away at last. Rain
and wind get weaker. This is the end of our nightmare. I hurry up to
check my
pluviometer. 66 millimetres (2,5984 inches) of water
have fallen down within 3 to 4 hours. We wash the
garage and
finally get to sleep around 1:45am.  The next morning, as soon as I wake up I check what has happened on the internet. I learn that this stormy night has killed 5 people in France, one of which died in my area (a tree had fallen down on a camper). I suddenly realise the violence of that thunderstorm which is quite rare in my geographical area.
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