Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: ANTOINE BOUREAU / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 4:27 p.m., February 29, 2024

Winter 2023-2024 is the third warmest ever measured in France, Météo France announced this Thursday.

Between the beginning of December and the end of February, traditionally the coldest period of the year, the mercury should exceed "by around 2 degrees" the normals for the period 1991-2020, behind the winters of 2020 and 2016.

Rain almost everywhere, but often spring-like temperatures before their time: after a record autumn, the winter of 2023-2024 is the third warmest ever measured in France and ends with an excessively mild month of February, again sign of global warming.

Between the beginning of December and the end of February, traditionally the coldest period of the year, the mercury should exceed "by around 2 degrees" the normals for the period 1991-2020, behind the winters of 2020 (+2.3 degrees) and 2016 (+2.1 degrees), Météo France announced on Thursday.

[1/2] #climate assessment: the winter of 2023-2024 finished 3rd among the warmest winters ever measured in France (around +2°C), behind 2020 (+2.3°C) and 2016 (+ 2.1°C).



The mildness set in from the end of January, with temperatures worthy of spring.

pic.twitter.com/Xk1xwZfITL

— Météo-France (@meteofrance) February 29, 2024

In 2021, 2022 and 2023, winter temperatures had already been above normal.

With a thermal anomaly of +3.6 degrees, February 2024 is the second hottest February in history after 1990 (+4 degrees).

This is also the 25th month in a row not to fall below normal.

Winters ever shorter

These figures are all the more notable since current normals are calculated from temperatures of the previous three decades, themselves already warmer than the climate of the pre-industrial era.

On a global scale too, the thermometer continues to break records: January was the eighth month in a row to be the hottest ever recorded in the world, according to the European Copernicus observatory.

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For Météo France, this “rise in temperatures, a consequence of climate change, leads to a shortening of the winter season”.

“Our winters are less cold than before, lasting frosts and snow in the plains are becoming increasingly rare,” underlines the weather forecasting organization in a press release.

The period from January 7 to 20, the only truly winter episode

Emblematic sign: since the beginning of December, only the period from January 7 to 20 has been characterized by a truly winter episode, which paradoxically surprised everyone a little after a fairly mild start to winter.

Freezing temperatures had affected the north of France (-14.7 degrees recorded in Arras for example) and the snow, which had fallen on the plains, had severely disrupted traffic in several places.

But since January 23, the thermometer has started to rise again.

Peaks of mildness were reached with average temperatures more than 6°C above normal.

The 25 degree mark (heat threshold) was crossed on Thursday January 25, in the Pyrénées-Orientales and in Hérault.

According to the Weather Channel, never since 1930 has the first half of February been so hot.

This mild streak continued until February 22.

The winter of 2023-24 was the warmest ever recorded in Alsace since 1947 and in Corsica it ranks tied with the winter of 2020, indicates Météo France

Rain but no snow

Despite everything, in certain parts of the country, particularly in the north, the impression of a “rotten winter” still dominates many minds.

The fault is a marked lack of sunshine and sequences of marked and persistent rain in certain regions.

Pas-de-Calais was hit by several major floods, and the PACA region also experienced two episodes of intense rainfall in February.

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Over the entire winter, France recorded an excess of rain of around 10% on average.

Relatively good news for groundwater, whose situation nevertheless remains precarious, after long months of almost uninterrupted drought.

In certain regions, it even remains dramatic.

Thus, the Eastern Pyrenees and the entire Languedoc-Roussillon region, which recorded their third winter with a significant deficit in terms of precipitation, as well as Corsica have hardly seen a drop of rain fall this winter.

Conversely, the excess rain exceeds 20% in Ile-de-France and Hauts-de-France.

In Dunkirk and Nice, it is even higher than 50%.

On the sunny side, the central-western regions in the Paris basin and the Ardennes look gloomy.

The sunshine deficit there has reached 10 to 30%.

Winter was finally marked by a lack of snow and very few frosts in the plains.

Snowflakes were almost absent in low and medium mountains (Vosges, Jura, Massif central, Corsica and Pyrenees).

In the Alps, snow cover was also in deficit at low altitude but in excess in high mountains, notes Météo France which sees this as "a direct consequence of climate change".