US also experiences severe convective storms, while record-breaking heat recorded in parts of South Africa
On Monday 9 March, severe thunderstorms affected parts of southern France, with several departments including Hérault, Var, and the Alpes-Maritimes put under yellow alert for heavy rain.
Some of the heaviest rainfall totals came from a cell that passed over the Var department. Examples of high rainfall totals taken from some private weather stations come from the towns of Carqueiranne and Saint-Mandrier-sur-Mer, where 104.4mm was recorded in seven and a half hours, and 92.7mm in three hours respectively. However, as these are private weather stations, they may contain measurement errors.
The official Hyères weather station recorded 113.7mm within 24 hours, which makes these values seem credible. This marks a new record for the station, beating the previous daily March record of 84.1mm in 1988.
Furthermore, owing to this heavy rain, the Gapeau River in Var burst its banks. The river reached heights of 2.34m, approaching the 2.66m recorded in the November 2011 floods, and as a consequence flooding continued for the following few days.
