It's a bit like going from one extreme to the other in terms of temperatures.
While almost all of France experienced a morning with negative values, even with less than -10°C and even -15°C in Arras (Pas-de-Calais), the thermometer will be able to display at the start of the week next up to around fifteen degrees in the same regions.
This yo-yo of temperatures, with an upward or downward oscillation, is “a classic phenomenon”, recalls Christine Berne, climatologist at Météo France.
“It’s not exceptional.
It's always a bit the same thing when it's very cold with an anticyclone over Siberia or Eastern Europe.
When the situation changes and disturbances return from the West there is relative mildness.
»
Maximums between 5°C and 10°C above seasonal norms next week
The scientist draws a parallel with the winter of 1954. Marked by a severe cold, he notably saw Abbé Pierre launch an appeal for generosity to help those suffering, or even dying, because of the cold.
On February 1, the average temperature in France was -7°C.
Just a few days later it reached +7°C, a change of around fifteen degrees on average.
Christine Berne insists on one point: these yo-yo effects, in addition to being usual, do not occur more frequently than before, due to climate change.
No study supports this idea, according to her.
On the other hand, where global warming “can, perhaps”, have an influence on these yoyos, it is with regard to “the level of temperatures”.
“Cold temperatures are less cold and hot temperatures are warmer” than before, she explains.
In the northern half of the country, depending on the region, maximum temperatures at the start of next week will be between 5°C and 10°C above seasonal norms.
At the beginning of February, temperatures could once again gradually return to winter values.
This is just a trend, still uncertain.
But another yoyo, in the opposite direction, could then occur.