aixcentric

Watching the terrifying force of Irma as it makes its way inland over Florida, after causing so much material damage and moral devastation in the Caribbean, people have questioned whether the south of France is vulnerable to this type of extreme weather.  The answer is no, well not quite….

‘La Provence’ carried out an extensive interview with meteorologists at the Meteo France office in Aix and learned that, while the Mediterranean isn’t hot enough to generate a hurricane of such ferocity, it can heat up enough to form what they call Medicanes  (Mediterrean+Hurricane).  These can occur in the autumn when the sea is still warm and reacts with cold air moving from the north.  These deep depressions are surrounded by massed clouds and have an ‘eye’.  They are rare – the first and last time one was experienced locally was in 2011.  It hit Porquerolles with gusts of 156 km/h and battered the beaches with 6 metre-waves. 

The consensus is that it is getting hotter and hotter in the south of France with periods of ‘canicule’ being more frequent and lasting longer.  Any subsequent autumn downpours on such dried-up land risk causing serious flooding.

Some stats:

• The Hottest Temperatures in Provence = 42.7 Le Luc, 7 July 1982; 42.6 Orange, 12 August, 2003
• The Windiest Weather = 190,8 km/h, Pomegues, 11 January 1987
• The Worst Deluge = 397mm over 24hrs, Les Arcs, 15 June 2010.