Bare arms on the terrace and swimming in the open sea this weekend left little doubt about the current anomaly.
October is officially the hottest month on record since Météo France measurements in 1945.
With an average of 17.2 degrees, the temperature was 3 to 4 degrees above normal, day and night combined, according to the institute.
The last “record” dated back to 2001 with an average temperature of 16.3°C and +2.6 degrees above normal.
📊 #October 2022 🇫🇷
🌡️ Avg T°C: 17.2°C
🔻 Anomaly: +3.5
🔻 New record ahead of October 2001 and October 2006.
🔻 9th consecutive month with a positive anomaly
🌧️ Cumulative precip.
avg: ~58mm
Deficit ~37% pic.twitter.com/l8eZhMAoqg
— Meteo-France (@meteofrance) November 1, 2022
Locally, since the beginning of the month, the thermometer has seen red on several occasions: the maximum temperature threshold of 25°C was reached on an unprecedented number of days for the month of October: 18 in Agen and Montauban (compared to 11 in 2014), 17 in Albi (13 in 2001), 16 in Tarbes (11 in 2014), 15 in Biarritz (14 in 1995), etc.
➡️ Some T°C noted this afternoon (deviation from normal in brackets):
🔺Tarbes: 31.8°C (+14)
🔺C-Ferrand: 28.7°C (+12)
🔺Biarritz: 27.3°C (+8 )
🔺Montauban: 26.8°C (+8)
🔺Lyon: 25.3°C (+9)
🔺Bordeaux: 25.3°C (+7)
🔺Marseille: 25.2°C (+5)
🔺Strasbourg: 24.6°C (+11 )
— Meteo-France (@meteofrance) October 28, 2022
Drought worsens in southern France
Among the many consequences of this warming, the drought which is accentuated in the South.
In addition to an abnormally high thermometer for the season, precipitation "has been less frequent than usual over most of the territory, on average to date with a deficit of more than 30%", with a deficit that exceeds 70% on an axis going from the Landes and Basque coasts to the PACA region and Corsica, indicates Météo France in a press release.
To read alsoWeather: it is almost 30°C in Périgord, and we wonder “whether to laugh or cry”
The soils "are slightly drier than normal in Auvergne - Rhône-Alpes and Normandy", while in New Aquitaine and Occitania, the drying corresponds "to a state usually observed in the middle of summer".
In Occitania, this is the driest situation encountered at this time of year since 1958.
Thursday, the Ministry of Ecological Transition reported 78 departments still experiencing restrictions on the use of water.
Among them, 38 departments have sectors in a state of “crisis”, where water withdrawals are reserved for priority uses, mainly in the Centre-West and the South.