The Limoges Météo France station, located along the runways of Bellegarde airport, closed its doors at the end of November, we learned this Monday, December 2, via a press release from the Limoges Meteorological Association.
This is the end of a 140-year history. “It was in 1885 that Paul Garrigou-Lagrange built his meteorological and astronomical observatory in Limoges in a street which has since taken the name of rue de l'Observatoire (in the city center, between the Turgot high school and the private college Ozanam)”, recalls the association.
It was not until 1938 that the surveys became professional with the installation of a station at the Feytiat aerodrome. It moved to Bellegarde in 1973.
A technical choice and undoubtedly also economical
“It is paradoxical, while climate change is the subject that conditions all our future projects, that Spain is far from having erased the damage caused by the storm, we are decreasing the number of men and women responsible for of this service,” deplores the Limoges Meteorological Association. “Automation, satellite measurements and computer modeling make it possible to do without human presence. It is a technical choice and undoubtedly also an economic one. However, the human interface is essential between computers and users, to interpret, explain, support, advise. »
“Adaptation to climate disasters, an essential prevention approach, requires great training and information needs, who will take care of them? With the omnipresence of social networks which often convey uninformed opinions, the contribution of weather professionals was a service to the territories whose usefulness, perhaps little recognized, risks being regretted. It is, in any case, a part of our heritage and our culture that is disappearing. Let's hope that something will remain, at least in our memories,” concludes the association, according to which the vacant premises of the station should return to the Limoges Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
