Small tender green shoots started to bud in January, on the Cogolin vines (Var), while the winegrowers had not even finished pruning. In the fields of Loiret, "the rapeseed already assembled in stem, high in places of 20 good cm, at a time when nature is supposed to hibernate", worries Michel Masson, farmer. These are also these big sweaters, which have not been out of the cupboards for a year, and these terraces filled up when we should congregate inside to eat fondues. The meteorological winter (December, January, February) which ended this Saturday is the mildest ever recorded in France, according to preliminary data just released by Météo France.
The thermometers recorded levels 2.7 ° C above the average of 5.4 degrees, calculated over a reference period of 29 years (1981-2010). Like Russian dolls, the records overlap one another: "The month of February in particular equals the record of February 2019, and it registers itself in an exceptionally mild winter in a large part of Western Europe ”, explains Jérôme Lecou, forecaster at Météo France. Of the eleven hottest winters since 1900, four are concentrated in the past ten years.
Peaks at 27 ° C in the South
Winter 2019-2020 is therefore the first warmest winter since 1900, ahead of the previous records of 2015-2016 (+ 2.6 ° C) and 1989-1990 (+ 2 ° C). And all the departments felt it: the North and the East of France saw neither flakes nor ice, and we recorded in the South peaks at 27 ° C.
No wonder Julie who, in her house on the outskirts of Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) who on February 22 and 23 was able to enjoy a lunch on her terrace, "and in a T-shirt". She has already started mowing the lawn again ... and hunting mosquitoes, which now flutter 12 months out of 12. In her wheat fields, Michel Masson also expects to see the proliferation of "the bugs that have not been killed by the winter. This will force us to use more insecticides, ”he anticipates.
"Not good news at all"
"The mild winters show the evolution of the climate, and therefore global warming," said meteorologist Guillaume Séchet, creator of the Météo-Paris.com site. It is to be expected that quarters like this will gradually become the norm. And this is not good news at all. "
However, the exceptional mildness of this winter, correlated with heavy rainfall, episodes of severe flooding and repeated storms, is primarily explained by punctual meteorological phenomena, "a succession of flows from west and south west who have maintained a certain softness ”, says Jérôme Lecou.
The forecasts from Météo France suggest the same type of weather for the beginning of the meteorological spring, "with large, rather mild air masses" expected in the coming weeks. A trend that does not exclude the possibility of a cold spell on the country until April, or even May. The catastrophic scenario for farmers, if the fruits and buds ripened too quickly on the branches were to freeze on the ground.