Météo France said it well: this Thursday, November 21, 2024, 33 departments are switching to “orange snow and ice vigilance” mode – and Paris, obviously, is part of the lot. In the capital, as soon as the first snowflakes fall, it's as if everyone activates their vacation mode. The cobblestones, the roofs, the cars: everything is transformed into a film set (or a giant ice rink, your choice). And there, bam! Parisians exchange their metro-work-sleep routine for a frenzy of snow photos, transforming into paparazzi flakes, just to be the first to post on Instagram.
The incredible snowfall of March 1946
And if today is no exception (yes, we also took out our photo of Paris under the snow, let's be honest), we are far, very far from the records of 1946. At the end of February, an anticyclone sets in between the Atlantic and Greenland, and the polar air arrives, engulfing Northern Europe before rushing towards the North Sea. South of this icy wave, a depression infiltrates from Portugal and slowly migrates towards France at the beginning of March. Result ? A brutal clash between hot and cold air masses. The snowy episode that followed lasted several days and swept from Pays de la Loire to Belgium. And, of course, Paris finds itself buried under a thick layer of snow.
Where it gets even crazier is that this low is hanging around and the snow is piling up relentlessly. On the Pays de la Loire-Belgium axis, we are talking about 15 to 30 cm: 19 cm in Lille, 25 cm in Angers, 27 cm in Nantes and Le Mans. But it’s in Île-de-France that it really explodes. In Paris, there was 40 cm of snow. And if you thought that was already a lot, the west of Paris actually reached 55 cm in Yvelines. Parisians abandon their day's work and engage in epic snowball fights. Some descend the stairs of the Sacré-Cœur on skis. It's so unreal that it feels like a movie. Another level, without a doubt.
