*** Severe weather warning for Haute Savoie tonight***

Local weather service Meteo France has announced a severe weather warning for Haute Savoie and Ain departments from this evening at 18:00. For the next 24 hours weather conditions are set to deteriorate with thunder storms, rain and strong winds.

Impossible to predict exactly where the localised storms will be most violent, the whole area has been placed on an orange alert (not quite serious enough for a red alert). We'll be seeing between 50 and 80 litres of rain fall per metre square during the night and landslides, burst rivers and flash flooding is expected.

The Prefecture (the region council) has even issued an alert this morning to residents warning us not to go out tonight and to be extremely prudent over the next 24 hours.

Weather experts are expecting the worst of the weather to be in the west of the region, more towards Lac du Bourget, Geneva and Ain department, but even so winds up to 90km/h are expected on Mont Blanc with gusts of up to 120km/h. The snowline will fall to around 3300m overnight.

As we write, the sky is turning a tad grey and the wind is getting up..time to batten down the hatches and stay put!