Many French people say goodbye to the summer of 2021 with the feeling that the summer weather has been very gloomy.
From June to August, France experienced more rainfall than in previous summers.
But on the temperature side, the summer ends with an average increase of 0.5 degrees.
A net effect of global warming, the summer of 2021 being "the fifteenth hottest recorded since 1900", explains Paul Marquis, meteorologist.
An impression of autumn. Rain, gray skies and rather cool temperatures. For many French people - those who do not live in the South - if we had to summarize, we had a "rotten summer". “Yes and no, it obviously depends on where in France you spent your summer. There were strong local disparities, ”says Paul Marquis, independent meteorologist and founder of the E-Meteo Service site. But, according to the summer report presented on Tuesday by Météo France, this sensation is not just a figment of the imagination: it rained more and, logically, and the sun, him, played hide and seek. .
But on the temperature side, if it was chilly in the northern half of France, the meteorological summer - which runs from June to August - ends with a rising thermometer, with an average of 0.5 degrees higher. than the benchmark averages.
So, rotten, exceptional or just normal: how to qualify summer weather 2021?
A particularly rainy and less sunny summer
For those who are cold in the northern half of the country, this summer, we still took out the big vests and the umbrella more than the flip-flops. "The summer was indeed marked by rains, with an excess of precipitation of around 23% over the summer," confirms Paul Marquis. But the distribution of these rains varies, it rained much more in the north of the country (+ 40%), with + 30% of precipitation in Paris this summer, but -60% in Marseille, or even -20% in Perpignan and even -90% on Ajaccio ”.
In detail, the month of June was the wettest, with 54% more precipitation than average, ahead of July (+ 49%), where August shows a deficit. rainfall (-40%), according to Météo France figures. Result: 2021 is “the wettest summer recorded since 2014” compared to the reference normal for cumulative precipitation observed from 1981 to 2010 (+ 40%), and is accompanied by “a number of rainy days. surplus, both on the west and east side of the country ”, specifies Météo France.
And logically, those who received more rain saw less sun.
If the month of June was maintained, "the deficit is very marked in July in the Center-East and the South-West, and in August in the North-East", reports Météo France.
But "at the national level, the sunshine is only in deficit by 10%, which is not catastrophic", adds Paul Marquis.
The coldest and wettest summer since 2014
On the temperature side, "summer is not rotten," assures Paul Marquis. Nationally, over the three meteorological summer months, there is an excess of 0.5 degrees over the season. And if we look month by month at the national level, we have +2 degrees in June, -0.1 degrees in July and -0.3 in August. But there again, there are local disparities: in the north of France, it is + 0.1 / 0.2 degrees while in the South is +0.7 degrees on average over the summer ”. Thus, on July 31 were recorded "monthly records of low maximum temperatures in the South-West, where it was around 15 degrees", underlines Météo France. And which set the tone for the first ten days of August, marked by "fresh and disturbed" weather.
Temperatures not folichonnes which make 2021 the coldest and humid summer since 2014. In question, "the phenomenon of" cold drop "coming from the north-west of the globe brought precipitation and caused catastrophic floods in Germany, in Belgium and the Netherlands, unheard of in those countries, ”explains Paul Marquis. And "if the French have the impression that the weather has been very ugly, it is because since 2015, we have had a series of very hot and dry summers, totally beyond the seasonal averages, insists the meteorologist. . The general public has - wrongly - taken as a reference summers which, in terms of weather, were exceptional, and not at all in the norm ”. Even if in July as in August, the thermometer has several times exceeded 40 degrees in the South-East, hit by violent fires.And that the Pic du Midi experienced on the night of August 13 to 14 its "second hottest night with a minimum of 14.5 degrees (measurements since 1881)", adds Météo France.
"A break from global warming"
Summary of the races, "we had a rainy summer, but relatively normal," says Paul Marquis.
In the 1990s, the summer of 2021 would have been considered normal, almost beautiful.
But people have taken in the idea of global warming, and figured out that now every summer must be accompanied by high temperatures.
However, the summer of 2003 remains that of an exceptional heatwave.
In addition, despite the impression of gloomy weather, this summer 2021 is the fifteenth hottest recorded since 1900 ", underlines the meteorologist, for whom" the feeling of rotten summer is therefore not justified ".
With its additional half-degree, the summer of 2021 "is globally on the rise in the context of global warming," said Matthieu Sorel, climatologist at Météo France on Tuesday. "A recent study shows that, because of global warming, the more global temperatures rise, the more humid it is: precipitation accumulates more with each additional half a degree, [which] increases the risk of severe thunderstorms and rainy as Eastern Europe has experienced this summer ”.
In the end, “we could analyze this summer as a slight break in global warming, but we could pay a heavy price for the summers to come, fears Paul Marquis.
Next summer could even be worse than that of 2003 or 2016. Finally, we were lucky, for our organizations as well as for nature, not to have a scorching summer.
Because it is unlikely that this scenario will happen again next summer, since there is statistically twice as much risk that the summers to come will resemble the heatwave of 2003.
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