The bad weather experienced across Belgium at the weekend will be replaced this morning by bright skies and temperatures of around 8°C. However the situation will change throughout the day, with clouds gathering and temperatures dropping to 1°C.
All the same, the next few days promise fewer problems than the weekend, which saw the Royal Meteorological Office issue a code yellow across almost the whole country, with shearing winds and intense precipitation.
In Mater in East Flanders, strong winds blew a tree down on the roof of a bed & breakfast; the same happened to a van driver in Waasmunster, who was narrowly able to escape his vehicle before impact.
In Smetlede in East Flanders, the road was blocked by a fallen tree that had taken down a distribution cable; in Dendermonde it was solar panels from an apartment building that blew onto the road.
The railways were not left unaffected. Trains were not running between Puurs and Boom in Antwerp province from 19.00 and 20.30 thanks to high water levels. And a signal installation was struck by lightning in Begijnendijk in Flemish Brabant, causing traffic delays on the Aarschot-Lier line. Both situations were resolved last night, Infrabel said.
"We will have a combination of a lot of rain and wind over us for 24 hours," weatherman David Dehenauw explained to HLN LIVE on Saturday afternoon.
“The gusts could reach 70 to 90 km per hour, while at the sea the peak could be slightly higher. The combination of a lot of rain and a lot of wind, we don't have much of that in our country. This means that you have to be a bit careful on the road. Water slipperiness can occur, in combination with gusts of wind.”
He wasn’t wrong. A 27-year-old motorcyclist died after he lost control of his vehicle in Merkem in West Flanders following a strong gust of wind.
The province of Liege advanced its warning code from yellow in the rest of the country to orange, as a result of forecasts of heavy precipitation. In the Brussels region, parks and forests were closed due to gusting winds.
