| Climate and the weather in France |
FRENCH WEATHER CHAOS IN 2010.....
A hurricane in March, record heat in April, snow in May, and
flash floods in Provence in June.... French residents are justified in
wondering what has happened to the climate in 2010 ?
This year has been a year of extremes in one direction or
another. The winter was one of the coldest and the snowiest for many
years in much of the southern half of France. Places that rarely see a
flake found themselves snowed up on three separate occasions in the
course of the winter. A foot of snow blanketed some Mediterranean
beaches for a day in March
Also in March, the western
coast of France, particularly the Vendée and Charentes areas, was
battered by hurricane Xynthia, which brought havoc to low-lying coastal
areas along the Atlantic seaboard, forcing the permanent evacuation of
a number of coastal housing developments, considered to be now at risk
from further and higher surge tides in years to come.
Then came April, and people breathed a sigh of relief as the sun came
out and daytime temperatures rose to record levels for the time of year
in many parts of the country.
The pleasure was
short-lived. Before April was over, daytime temperatures in many places
plunged again, and by the start of May the records were being broken in
the other direction. On May 4th, the maximum
daytime temperature in Perpignan (one of the warmest spots in France)
only struggled up to 7.9°C. And nearby in the hills of the Ariège, up
to 25 cm (9 inches) of snow brought down power lines and trees that
were already fully in leaf. Snowflakes fell over a large part of
southwest France, helping to make the month the coldest May in living
memory, and the greyest, in much of France. In the same month,
storms worthy of the north Atlantic battered the Mediterranean Riviera
coast just days before the start of the Cannes film festival.
And if that were not enough, much of southern France remained
blanketed in grey clouds for the first half of June, with heavy rain in
areas including the Dordogne and the Languedoc. To cap it all, an inch
and a half of rain (over 40 mm) fell in parts of Provence in mid-June,
causing flash flooding that killed at least 20 people and caused damage
running into millions of Euros. According to the authorities, nothing
like this had affected Provence for over two hundred years.
Paradoxically, in spite of the long cold cloudy periods that
have affected much of France this year, notably the southern half,
neither the first nor the second quarters of the year are likely to
appear in the historic records as particularly cold. On the contrary,
warm days in February and April will have left the seasonal averages
close to, or slightly above, normal – though colder than most of the
previous years of the last decade. Despite all, the trend remains
decidedly upward. |
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.
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.
During summer, the upland areas of central southern France are
generally warm and sunny, but dramatic skies can brew up on sultry
summer afternoons, often developing into short but spectacular thunder
storms.
In the Pyrenees, 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.
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