Snow melt + tides = flooding in Cherbourg

Rain is pouring down this morning. Not a deluge, but a steady rain that is slowly melting all the snow. It rained all afternoon yesterday. The high temperature was about 38ºF.

The deluge happened in the port town of Cherbourg, up on the northern extremity of the Normandy peninsula called Le Cotentin. That's an area that very rarely has any significant snowfall at all because of maritime winds that keep it relatively mild.

They say the big dump of snow that covered the area melted so fast, because of heavy rains that followed the snowfall, that the local river, La Divette, reached flood stage very quickly. Unfortunately, this is the time of year when the highest and lowest tides occur along the French coast.

There was what is aptly called a "flood" tide this weekend, just as it was raining the hardest and the snow was almost all melted. The tide caused the Divette to back up, and much of the center of the town was suddenly knee-deep in water. In some places it was waist-deep. The ground floor of many buildings was inundated. Cars were floating down the streets.

A Cherbourg, l’avenue de Paris se transforme en torrent

Click the forward arrow on the graphic to play the video.

People said they had never seen anything like this happen in Cherbourg, which normally benefits from what is called a temperate climate.

Nothing like this happened in Saint-Aignan over the weekend. I imagine the Cher River is nearly at flood stage, however, with all the melting snow and the steady rain. I didn't go out yesterday to see it, but I do plan to go to the supermarket today. It's been over a week since the last shopping trip.