Photos

The very cold temperatures last weeks in Europe and France cause a very rare phenomenon in Nantes those lst day : river Loire looks like Saint Laurent in Quebec or a river in Siberia and carries thousanfs of ice plates ! These ice blocks are formed upstream the river, in areas of France where river Loire is frizzed by ice these last days. The ice blocks split in ice plates when they go downstream the river to the estuary. This phenomenon was not so important from 1985 winter. It causes problems for sailing on the river, in particular downstream Nantes. Because of the tides the ice plates accumulate on banks of the river. As a consequence the Loire ferries had to stop crossing the river. This phenomenon should decraase in next days because cooler temperatures are forecasted from this night. But the thaw might cause floods in coming weeks !

This photo was token in early afternoon today from Mauves-sur-Loire bridge, east of Nantes. The place should be called Mauves-on-Ice instead on Mauves-on-Loire ! Despite the cold temperature, there was a lot of people looking at this fantastic phenomenon !