We moved to France in October 2014. Charente at first, but didn’t settle so moved over to Limousin. I recall our first spring in France as being absolutely amazing. Nearly wall to wall sunshine, high pressure and generally lovely weather from March through to May. T shirt and shorts weather.
Since then (a period of seven years) I generally cannot remember a really nice and warm spring with settled weather for the majority of time, maybe an odd week here or there?
We are in Haute Correze now so would expect cooler temperatures, but the lack of sunshine and high pressure in spring is noticable. 2021 was a shocking weather year here with an extremely cold April and pretty miserable March and May. Washout summer too. We lost all our tomato plants and none of the other veg really recovered.
Last year we struggled to see any sustained warmth through any part of the year and had our pellet burner running for 8 out of 12 months of the year!!
We moved to the high part of the Limousin (Plateau Millevaches) for slightly cooler summers and more reliable rainfall for growing. The summers in Charente were just ridiculous with 40 plus degrees not rare and many weeks without rain. In Limousin we didn’t expect the spring weather to be so bloody awful, yet since being in Limousin (2017) there have also been two years with serious summer droughts and crazy heat (high thirties) (2019, 2020).
Spring is my favourite season by far and yet now it feels like it is just an extension of the milder winters we are getting. If the last seven years are anything to go by it’s maybe not a blip?
Where is the warmth and settled high pressure weather? Wouldn’t you expect this in the southern part of France in spring?
Another feature seems to be the wind. After a relatively dry, sunny and calm winter, since spring arrived we have been plagued by strong gusting winds from all directions itseems. Today is overcast and around 12 degrees but the wind is gusting to around 75 kmph, I can hear it in the chimney!
It looks even worse further south today with some places having gusts of up to 150kmph. (Ventusky.com is great for animate live weather maps).
Previous springs and indeed summers have been extremely windy for much of the time.
Obviously climate change has a big hand in all of this, but it seems to me like we won’t experience another lovely spring again…seven years and counting!!
What’s it like where you are?