About-France.com Climate and weather in France
About France.com - the France travel and information portal .   A website about France and life in France
Evening sky over France

Baie des anges

  Storm brewing over Nice




The weather forecast for France::
Click here for the four day weather forecast for France 
Click here for maps of France, including a sunshine map


 Site index: About-France.com - accueil en français
France in general Main travel pages Living and leisure Other chapters.
About-France.com - home Travel to France (air / sea) Living in France Hotels in France
The regions of France Driving in France - road travel Tourist attractions in France Holiday cottages in France
Preparing a trip French rail travel Guide to French wines Studying in France
France facts and figures Visiting Paris Guide to French cheese Shopping in France
Full site index Maps of France The markets of France Doctors and emergencies

Climate and the weather in France

    Bordered by four seas (the North Sea, the Channel, the Atlantic ocean and the Mediterranean), by three mountain ranges (the Alps, the Jura and the Pyrenees), and the edge of the central European lowlands, France is a country with very diverse climatic conditions, resulting in very different weather patterns. When visiting France, it is often usful to consult the weather forecast! The variety of France's weather patterns is further complicated by ongoing climate change and global warming, which in recent years have lead to a surprising number of unexpected and extreme weather conditions.
    Like many places on Earth, France has weather conditions that are strongly influenced by barometric pressure: low pressure tends to leave France open to the influence of the Atlantic airstream, bringing with it clouds and rain; but when a ridge of high pressure builds up over the heart of western Europe, a large part of France, sometimes even the whole country, can be protected from the prevailing westerlies under a vast covering of dry air, often accompanied by winds from the east.
France climate zones     In short, the weather in France is determined by the balance of power between oceanic weather systems from the west, and continental anticyclones from the east. It is the differing relative influence of these systems that determine the two main climate zones of France, and within these two zones the different sub-zones.
    These zones can bee seen in the map on the left. In the western and north-western half of France, stretching from the Belgian border to the Pyrenees, the climate is generally oceanic,  In Atlantic and northern regions, the influence of Atlantic weather systems is predominant;but further south and east, the influence of Atlantic weather systems diminishes.
    In practical terms, this means that these western areas of France benefit from a mild climate, with moderate rainfall possible at all times of the year. The "oceanic" area, and notably Brittany, jutting out into the Atlantic, has a particularly mild climate, but can be quite rainy even in summer months - though this is not always the case by any means. The semi-oceanic area, also called the intermediate area,  has less rainfall particularly in summer, as it is more often under the influence of continental high-pressure systems. This band includes the great cereal growing areas of France, Champagne, the Beauce (south of Paris) and the Midi Toulousain, round Toulouse.
     The eastern side of France has a more continental climate, Apart from the mountain areas, it is generally drier than western France, with winters that are colder and summers that are hotter, for a given latitude, The south coast of France benefits from a continental climate moderated by the influence of the Mediteranean, generally drier than the rest of France, and without the cold winters of the rest of the continental climate zone.
     The climate of eastern and south-eastern France is particularly influenced by three famous winds, la Bise, le Mistral and le Tramontain. La Bise is the dry east wind that can blow over from central Europe; in winter it can be bitterly cold, in summer blisteringly hot. Blocked over France by the Atlantic weather systems and by the Massif Central mountains, la Bise is forced south and notably channeled down the Rhone valley towards Provence, where it becomes le Mistral. Le Mistral is thus a dry wind that can blow over central Provence for weeks on end, and in winter can be surprisingly cold. The wind that skirts round the Massif Central or blows over the top of it towards the Mediterranean is known as Le Tramontain.
     The microclimate of the Riviera: the extreme southeast of France, the area around Cannes, Nice and Monaco, benefits from its own microclimate; protected from the Mistral by the mass of the Alps, the climate on this narrow coastal plain is pure Mediterranean, with mild winters and warm summers.

     The mountain areas of France; like all mountain areas, France's mountain areas have a cooler climate than surrounding areas, with more precipitation. Since the wet winds in France are those that come from the west or to a lesser extent from the south, it is the southern and western sides of the mountain ranges that are wetter. This is particularly the case with the Massif Central, whose eastern half is drier. The Cevennes mountains, the south eastern part of the Massif Central, are generally quit dry, but can receive deluges of heavy rain if wet air moves up from the Mediterranean, which happens most often in the Spring or Autumn. The Pyrenees are an exception to the general rule, as it is the French side of this range, i.e the north eastern side, that is wetter than the Spanish side. This is because moist oceanic air is pulled through southwest France from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. In all the mountain areas of France, thunderstorms are a common feature in summer.

Moving Boundaries:
With the exception of the areas of mountain climate, which are determined largely by altitude and topography, the borderlines betwen the different climate zones of France are variable, and will move north and south, east and west, depending on the strength of conflicting weather systems. It is quite possible for the whole of France to come under the influence of the prevailing Atlantic westerlies, with their clouds and showers; conversely, though less often, the whole of France can be dominated by continental air masses, leaving hardly a cloud in the sky over the whole country.



To contact this website, send an email to info "at"  about-france.com (Replace "at" by the standard symbol, and remove all spaces. This coding is a simple anti-spam measure)

 


add to Furl    Furl
add to del.icio.us   del.icio.us -
add to technorati    Technorati -
add to Blinklist   BlinkList -
add to Digg     Digg
add to Google   Google -
add to stumbleupon    StumbleUpon
add to My Yahoo   My Yahoo

 
Copyright notice: Website and text © About-France.com 2003-2008   except where otherwise indicated.