The last eight days have recorded average temperatures five degrees above normal. The wave of sweetness affects the whole of Western Europe.
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More than 15 ° C degrees in Paris, 21 ° C in Marseille or Nîmes: These temperatures look more like those of the end of spring than the New Year’s Eve’s Eve. We did not deceive itself, France is currently experiencing a wave of exceptional winter sweetness. According to the latest weather report of Meteo-France, the week of December 24th to 31st has been the hottest ever measured since 1947. These eight days have recorded average temperatures five degrees above normal. With 10.7 ° C on average, this end of the year 2021 ranks before 2002 (10.5 ° C) and 2015 (9.8 ° C).
This episode of sweetness is due to “a very hot air loaded with humidity, from the tropical Atlantic Ocean, which settled on France at the beginning of the week,” explains Olivier Proust, forecasser to mete- France. This “atmospheric river”, as it is called, has led to significant episodes of rain and very high temperatures. The formation of an anticyclone above the mediterranean in the middle of the week then favored a “great sun and dry air on the large southern half of the country”, specifies the expert.
phenomenon ” Durable and late “
Deck for record temperatures, day and night, especially in the mountains. Friday, Weather-France recorded a minimum of 11.4 ° C to Mount Aigoual, in the Massif Central, 1,500 meters above sea level, a new value since the beginning of the surveys, in 1895. The thermometer also exceeded 20 ° C Day at 1000 meters above sea level in this mountainous massif. On December 29, Perpignan recorded nearly 17 ° C at night, a record. And the capital had never experienced more than three successive days with more than 15 ° C in the second half of December.
“What is marking in this phenomenon is that it is sustainable, late – since usually the temperatures fall between the beginning and the end of December -, and of a remarkable extent,” adds Olivier Proust. The wave of sweetness affects the whole of Western Europe, with high temperatures in London, in Dublin, Amsterdam, as in Germany, Austria or Switzerland. It should be completed in the middle of next week, with a return of seasonal normals and frosts throughout France.
The waves of winter sweetness do not have an impact on health, unlike guns or cold waves. But they still lead to negative consequences: reduction of snow, risks of avalanches, casting early snow that feeds rivers with a risk of floods, not to mention the consequences on agriculture. “A vegetation that starts is then fragilized by the gel, and the cold is necessary for the plant cycle with the destruction of the parasites,” says Météo-France.
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