It has not escaped your notice, the weather has changed dramatically in the space of a few hours. After a noticeable cold spell, the mildness is making a strong comeback, with temperatures once again above normal for the season.
We remove a layer again. While we had been well wrapped up in our winter clothes for many days, due to a cold spell, suddenly we had to undress a little, because of the temperatures which were rising again.
“Temperatures have often gained 10 degrees in just a few hours, suddenly rising above normal for the season,” notes Meteo France. Locally, the temperature differences even reach almost 20°C, as in Besaçon, between Sunday and Monday.
ud83dudccau26a0ufe0f#December2022
With the mildness of the next few days, the avg. of the month on the ud83cuddebud83cuddf7 scale, which currently shows a deviation from normal of -2.8°C, should rise. December 2022 will not look like Dec. 2010 (very cold) or the last months of December (very hot) pic.twitter.com/WI5LrzAdo1— Meteo-France (@meteofrance) December 19, 2022
What happened ?
The air masses moved. Responsible for the temperatures, the latter “guide the weather situations which are essential in our country”, recalls Météo France. And since the end of November, we had “an anticyclone installed in the vicinity of Iceland and depressions towards the Azores”, i.e. an inverted circulation of air masses over the North Atlantic.
Sunday, December 18, “the southwest flow has advanced, carrying a mass of air of subtropical origin, sweeping the cold film that has covered much of the continent lately”, details the national meteorological service.
As a result, we observe a strong variation in temperatures in the space of a short time, as well represented by the curve below, modeled by the Weather Channel.
ud83cudf21ufe0fud83cudf84ud83cudf21ufe0f We are heading towards a #Noël on the balcony with a planned national thermal indicator of 10.3°C while the normal is close to 6°C. A sharp drop in temperatures then looms between Christmas and New Year. pic.twitter.com/vhQuu82nyk
— The Weather Channel (@lachainemeteo) December 19, 2022
How long will this last?
We observe above that Christmas should therefore be in a range of temperatures above normal for the season. “The peak of mildness could occur around Christmas, with temperatures well above 15°C in the plains and by the sea”, predicts Weather Languedoc. On the sky side, it will be necessary to expect rain, over a major part of the country.
The snow, which has fallen locally, particularly in the Alps, should therefore melt at low altitude. “In the mountains, the snow will only fall around 2000 meters in altitude with fairly low quantities in general, a little more noticeable in the north of the Alps”, specifies Météo France.
For now, the first models seem to agree on a possible further drop in temperatures after Christmas.