If you live in Nice, you may not even notice it anymore because you are used to it: the sun. The local center of Météo-France has recorded nearly 210 hours of sunshine since the beginning of January. A record! “It’s the sunniest month of January [au moins] since 1943 and the opening of the Nice station, explains Marie-France Delansorne, manager within the organization. This is 37% more than normal, but generally speaking, this is true for the entire Alpes-Maritimes department. »
#January2022 goes down in history #Weather report with a new record#Sunshine ☀️
Already 209 hours recorded and there is still 1 day left ⏱ Old #record dating from January 2005 with 200h and 50 min #Weather06
More worrying Only 1 day of rain at #Nice and 0 to #Williams pic.twitter.com/cu83ig9WIU— Nice Meteo 06 (@NiceMeteo06) January 30, 2022
Who says a lot of sun, says little rain. In 31 days, there was only one day of bad weather in Nice, “around January 5”, details the manager of the center. “We have a deficit of 83% of precipitation because normally, it falls about 73 mm of rain and here we are at 0.4 mm. But there have been other months in history, such as 1983 and 1993, when there was no precipitation in Nice”. She explains that it is due to an anticyclonic weather which is characterized by the fact that “we always have good weather” with “little variation in temperature”.
Shorter winter seasons
Direct consequences on the Maralpine Mountains. “If it’s not raining, it can’t snow,” notes Marie-France Delansorne. In addition, the temperatures are very mild and the sun beats down on the southern slopes, the snow melts. At Isola 2000, for example, it hasn’t snowed since the beginning of December and only 45% of the slopes are currently open.
“What is quite remarkable, even if the winter is not quite over, is that winter 2021/2022 is one of the mildest since we have had the resort in Nice, adds the head of the center. To talk about global warming, we need a larger scale than a few months, but that goes in the direction of what we project with episodes of intense cold that are rarer, shorter and less intense. In short, the winter seasons will be shorter and shorter. »
She points out that “from one year to another, the weather is variable but that the type of winter we are currently experiencing will be more and more normal by the end of the century”.