Snow to blanket eastern France Wednesday night, forecasters
Much of the east of France was cold weather alert Wednesday as forecasters predict snowfall heavy enough to seriously disrupt traffic and some business activities overnight.
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Forecasters at Météo France issued an orange alert for a swathe of the country stretching from the Ardennes in the north to the Alps in the south, predicting snow starting at 8.00pm Wednesday and lasting until Friday morning.
The departments of Ain, Isère, Haute-Loire, Rhône et Loire, Lorraine, Ardennes, Haute-Saône, Haute-Marne, Côte-d'Or, Doubs, Jura, Corrèze, Allier, Cantal, Puy-de-Dôme,
Saône-et-Loire, Savoie, Haute-Savoie, Ardèche, Drôme and Alpes-de-Haute-Provence were put on alert.
The first snow of the season is likely to settle at 20-30cm in the Alps and the Massif Central mountains, they say, with 5-10cm in the lowlands.
The central city of Saint Etienne woke to up to 30cm of snow on Wednesday morning and traffic was disrupted in the region around it with thousands of homes experiencing power cuts.
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