This week marks the shift from very cold weather to mild weather. After temperatures well below seasonal averages since the beginning of December, the thermometer has started to rise again in France in recent days with values this time higher than those expected for the period.
On Tuesday, levels never seen before were reached in the Pyrenees. The departments of Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Hautes-Pyrénées and Ariège were concerned. Monthly records for mildness have been broken locally, as in Ariège, with temperatures close to 25°C, i.e. close to the so-called “heat” threshold.
The trend will increase on Thursday and Friday. According to Météo France forecasts, Friday could be the day with the hottest temperatures with nearly fifteen degrees in the north of the country and twenty in the south.
Temperatures worthy of early spring
Saturday and Sunday, for December 24 and 25, temperatures will drop by 2°C to 3°C. But as the sun will shine more, the feeling will be higher overall than Thursday and Friday. However, rain is expected on Saturday in the border area of the New Aquitaine, Center Val-de-Loire and Loire-Atlantique regions. On Sunday, showers will occur in the north of the country.
Abnormally high temperatures this week are accompanied by heavy rainfall. This animation, relayed by meteorologist Guillaume Séchet, shows the expected accumulations by region between this Wednesday and next Monday. He recalls that this is good news after a year marked by drought in France.
In December, Météo France recalls that the average temperatures are between 6°C and 10°C in the North depending on the region. In the South, they range from 8°C to 14°C. Those expected over the next few days are worthy of the start of spring with values corresponding to the end of March – beginning of April.
Temperatures higher than the norm
François Jobard, meteorologist at Météo France, summarizes the situation for the current week as follows: “The days leading up to Christmas are expected to be very mild, an astonishing mildness which will accompany weather that is often rainy over the northern two-thirds. Spring to the south with more sunny spells…” He attaches a map in support of his statement to show the average temperature anomaly between this Wednesday and Monday 26 December.
The Météo-villes site explains that “maintaining a flow from south to south-west will allow an impressive thermal anomaly reaching up to +6°C in the center-east”. He compares this situation with the first twenty days of the month when “the anomaly was -2.5°C”.
From the middle of next week, the European and American meteorological models are unable to agree between themselves, but also themselves, on the air mass that will dominate. However, more and more calculations lead to the maintenance of higher temperatures than the norm.