Millau

This is not the best view of the Millau viaduct, one of the most impressive engineering projects in the world. There is a viewpoint from which I have previously blipped but today it was more a question of knocking out the long miles to Orléans for an overnight stop. We drove through some atrocious weather in the Cévennes. The news said that one person had died in the floods and that one river had risen six metres in two hours, from a river bed with barely a trickle to a torrential torrent. A Cévenol episode is a meteorological phenomenon that mainly occurs in the Cévennes and its surrounding area. It consists of very violent and highly localised storms, accompanied torrential rain, in most cases causing, flooding. The phenomenon is well known to meteorologists and it is relatively well understood. Cévenol episodes form when the warm and humid air from the Mediterranean heads north. When it comes up against the mountainous barrier of the Cévennes, it meets the cold air present at high altitude. These conditions are often present in autumn. They classically form rain clouds. But in this case, the clouds are blocked by the mountain and perpetually form and re-form. Thus, storms can last for several hours, causing major damage.