After a particularly mild month of December, this first week of vacation takes place in a winter atmosphere with cold and sometimes snowfall. A situation that is increasingly rare due to climate change.
White Christmas. If in the collective imagination, the evening of December 24 is accompanied by snow, in reality it is rather rare in France. But yet, this year, some lucky people were able to enjoy a few flakes, sometimes generous, for this Christmas Eve, and thus wake up under a blanket of snow.
This Wednesday, just like this Thursday, many departments were placed on snow-ice yellow vigilance. Ardèche and Drôme were even classified in orange. In its bulletin, Météo-France announces that one to three centimeters of snow were recorded on the plains in the two departments. Up to five centimeters were also recorded on the heights of Ardèche and eight centimeters on the border with Haute-Loire.
“Snow occurred all the way to the plains with the exception of the extreme south of Ardèche and the south of Drôme where the rain/snow limit did not fall below 400 to 700m,” specifies the meteorological institute.
A cold Christmas
Snow also fell during the night from Wednesday to Thursday in the Centre-Val de Loire region, particularly in Indre-et-Loire, Cher and even Loiret. Further east, beautiful flakes were captured in Côte-d’Or or the Rhône. A few centimeters of snow also covered the ground in the northwest of the country, particularly on the tip of Brittany.
The magic of Christmas should continue during the day this Thursday with snowfall expected, particularly in Auvergne and the Pyrenees.
It must be said that it is cold in France. After a particularly mild month of December, a mass of cold air covered the territory, accompanied by the northeast wind, therefore causing a drop in the mercury. With a predicted national average temperature of 3°C, December 25 is expected to be the coldest Christmas in fifteen years.
Global rise in temperatures
However, such episodes are becoming increasingly rare due to climate change. Although it is scientifically proven that our climate is warming due to greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities, this does not prevent cold episodes, even records, linked to specific weather conditions, such as the current cold drop.
Conversely, records and heat waves have multiplied in recent years. Météo-France has already announced that the year 2025 will be the third or fourth hottest year ever recorded in France.
Christmases are therefore, on average, less and less cold and, consequently, less and less white.
The Weather-Climate Question, your BFMTV podcast
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