While the summer continues very hotly on our thermometers, the meteorological summer of the scientists – which is confined to June, July and August – delivers its balance sheet. With the exceptional heat wave that ended it and with an average temperature of 21.8°C 1.4°C higher than normal, it ranks according to Météo-France as the fourth hottest summer ever recorded in France. Only the summers of 2003 (+2.7°C), 2022 (+2.3°C), and 2018 (+1.5°C) exceed it.
On a national scale, two periods of heat affected the country: “after an almost generalized hot sequence from July 8 to 11 and particularly marked in the South-East, a late heat wave affected a large part of the country from August 17 to 24, ”says Météo-France. “During this late heat wave, we broke many absolute temperature records, that is to say that it has never been so hot during the year, in several cities in France”, points out the climatologist Matthieu Sorel. Scientists have thus noted significant values such as 43.2°C in Carcassonne or 27.4°C at night in Toulouse. The Var, the Alpes-Maritimes and the Pyrénées-Orientales experienced a total of 30 days of high heat, “i.e. one day in three”.
“The climatology of France redrawn”
“The records of 2003 or 1947 are generally erased in certain regions. We realize that these recent heat waves have reshaped the climatology of France”, underlines Matthieu Sorel. He insists on the fact that “temperature records are now held by recent years and in particular the recent heat waves: August 2003, June and July 2019, the heat waves of 2022 and now the heat wave of 2023” and sees there a “sign of the climate change”, when cold records begin to date, sometimes from 1956.
“This summer was hot on average but relatively normal in terms of precipitation,” also recalls Christine Berne, also a climatologist, contrary to what spring feared.
Summer considerations that will undoubtedly make vacationers jump who have had the misfortune to find themselves in a large north-eastern quarter of France around July 21 and then at the beginning of August. Christine Berne speaks of “a cool parenthesis that made an impression (…) and was very drunk”. It was notably punctuated on August 2 by the storm Patriciat. The winds above 80 km/h that it caused to blow inland are relatively rare in summer, and “are observed rather during autumn and winter storms”. The summer was very hot but not for everyone.