France hailstones
© Reuters / Valentin Flauraud
A huge thunderstorm has bombarded the French region of Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes with hailstones the size of tennis balls, and included a record number of lightning bolts, providing for a deluge of impressive content on social media.

The meteorological calamity led to the classification by Meteo France of most of the country as being at the second-to-worst 'level orange' weather threat on Saturday. But Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, located on the border with Switzerland and Italy, was hit the hardest.

One video captured a swimming pool that looked as though it was boiling, due to the massive hailstones falling into the water.


A man wearing body armor made of cardboard boxes as he tried to protect his car from the ice lumps, also caused a lot of laughs, despite the stunt putting him in real danger.


There have been, so far, no reports of deaths of injuries caused by the hailstorms.


The thunderstorm also set a record for the most lightning bolts striking this year, with 73,700 of them recorded, mainly over Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes.

The French south had already witnessed a massive hailstorm in mid-June, in which 10 people were injured and serious damaged was meted out to property and to local vineyards.