It is now official: 2022 is indeed the hottest year ever recorded in France, and it is also one of the driest.

With an average annual temperature of 14.5 degrees and a rainfall deficit of some 25%, Météo-France confirmed on Friday January 6 that this is indeed a record year, "a symptom of climate change".

At the end of November, the national weather forecasting institute had announced that, whatever the temperatures in December, 2022 would be the hottest year on record, but the exact figure had yet to be determined.

A very mild month of December

Despite a small episode of cold weather recorded from December 8 to 17, the last month of the year was very mild, well above normal for the season.

Consequence: with finally 14.5 degrees of annual average, "2022 ranks first" of the hottest years since the beginning of the records in 1900, "very far ahead of 2020 which held the record until now", with 14 .07°C.

“All the months of the year were warmer than normal, with the exception of January and April,” indicates Météo France on its website.

And the year will have been marked by three waves and numerous heat records.

Over the whole summer, the second hottest that France has known, a record number of 33 days of heat waves were recorded.

The summer of 1983 held the previous record, with 23 days.

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Drought and water shortages

Autumn was also particularly mild, especially in October, and December 31 was even the warmest New Year's Eve since 1947.

According to Météo-France, this year, although exceptional in the long term, is a reflection of the recent period when human-caused global warming is accelerating: eight of the ten warmest years since the beginning of the 20th century. century are after 2010.

And the effects are now more and more evident in the daily life of the French, leading in particular to drought and water shortages, even in the middle of winter.

In 2022, metropolitan France will have recorded a "record rainfall deficit" of some 25%.

This deficit, the precise figure of which is in the process of being definitively calculated, is almost equal to that measured in 1989, specifies Météo-France, which must confirm "at the end of the month" which of the two years is the driest, since the surveys began in 1959.

Exceptional sunshine

The soil drought was one of the longest and most extensive in France, with three quarters of the territory concerned.

"The drought was thus less generalized than in 1976 or 2011 but more than in 2003", notes Météo-France.

A dozen departments are still observing water restriction orders, according to the government site Propluvia.

Meteo-France also notes "exceptional sunshine in most regions" in 2022, "most often in excess of 15%" and with "many records, especially in the northern half of the country".

"Rennes, for example, recorded 2,088 hours of sunshine over the past year", compared to an average of 1,761 annual hours over the period 1991-2020.

Bourges and Colmar experienced 2,214 hours and 2,352 hours of sunshine respectively, compared to an average of 1,888 hours and 1,882 hours over the same reference period.

With AFP 

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