France's weather agency placed 16 departments on the western side of France on orange alert on Tuesday afternoon due to heavy storms. The Météo France agency predicted violent thunderstorms, featuring hail showers and gales set to sweep in from the west. "This wave of storms will be marked by a high risk of localised hail storms, violent gusts of wind reaching 80 to 90km/h, possibly passing 100km/h," reads the warning on Météo France. The departments on alert are: Ille-et-Vilaine, Loire-Atlantique, Maine-et-Loire, Mayenne, Vendée, Aquitaine, Poitou-Charente, Dordogne, Gironde, Lot-et-Garonne, Charente-Maritime, Gers, Vienne, Deux-Sèvres, Landes, Deux-Sèvres and Hautes-Pyrénées. Temperatures have been high in the western region, including up to 35C in Dordogne, but these temperatures gave way to storms throughout the afternoon, which hit the western end of the Pyrenées mountains first.

Source: The Local September 13, 2016 15:45 UTC