Gabriel Chamoulaud, Météo France meteorologist in Champagne-Ardenne, analyzed the weather over the last few days for L’Ardennais. “In the Ardennes we are in a rare but not exceptional situation”.
48 days of rain, the record soon to be broken
The month of May recorded an average precipitation of around 80 mm in the department, which would correspond to the seasonal averages. “The anomaly is more likely to occur on rainy days,” assures the forecaster.
According to French weather data, the Ardennes have an average of 15 days of rain per month, or one day in two. Since the start of spring, from March to today, Charleville-Mézières has recorded 48 rainy days in 2024 compared to 37 in 2023, 15 in 2022, 27 in 2021 and 19 in 2020.
For comparison, Saint-Quentin is not very far with 46 days of rain this spring 2024. Reims is doing better than its neighbors, it only has 35 days of rain over the same period.
“Finally the feeling is translated into the figures”explains the scientist. “These figures place the year 2024 in Charleville-Mézières, in 2nd place since measurements began in 1990, just behind 2001, which holds the record with 50 days. This record could well be broken by the end of May. “.
“We have accumulated 6 months with sunshine anomalies”
Charleville-Mézières also holds other sad records. The Carolomacerian city is one of the cities most deficient in sunshine. Since the start of 2024, the Ardennes town has recorded 427.6 hours of sunlight in 150 days or approximately 2h51 of sunshine on average per day…
The Marne and Axone neighbors are not breaking records but are not better off. For spring 2024, Saint-Quentin has a deficit of 20.5% in sunshine compared to previous years. This is its lowest value since 2013.
And 2024 is also a difficult year for Reims, which this year records its lowest sunshine value since the move of its weather station in 20213.
“The sunshine in the Ardennes is very complicated. Since November we have had 6 months with sunshine anomalies and in particular a record month of February with only 13 hours of sunshine »alerts the forecaster.
The culprits: cold drops and east returns
This rain intensity is caused by the famous cold drops that have been hovering over our heads for almost 3 months. “A cold drop is a pocket of cold air at altitude which isolates itself from the currents of meteorological phenomena to remain close to France. It can last several days and cause a lot of downpour regimes”explains Gabriel Chamoulaud.
Added to this cold drop are also “returns from the east”. These are depressions coming straight from our neighbors in Eastern Europe. “Normally, it is mainly in Alsace and Moselle that we have returns from the east but this year they went further”.
Towards a return of the sun in June
A vain glimmer of hope could nevertheless appear at the beginning of June. “ From the week of June 3, the weather will be drier. There should be a rise in thermometers, closer to seasonal norms with brighter weather, not necessarily full sun but it will already be good”.
#French
