It has never rained so much in Paris as in 2024, Christmas “drizzles” set a new record

WEATHER – It's the rainiest year in the capital for 150 years and the start of weather records. Wednesday December 25, Christmas Day, Paris broke its historic precipitation record, with 901.1 mm of rain falling in 2024, compared to 900.8 mm in 2000, the date of the previous record, according to annual data from the station. Paris-Montsouris published this Thursday 26. The day before, Météo France had already mentioned this record, then based on provisional figures, in a press release relayed by several media.

The mark at the beginning of the century was therefore exceeded by a few tenths of a millimeter, thanks to “faint drizzle on Christmas night”, specifies the weather organization to France Bleu Paris.

Before 2000, the previous record dated from 1965. In other words, by beating the records of 1965 and 2000, the year 2024 was the rainiest since the existence of rainfall records at the Montsouris station, established in 1873 , 151 years ago.

Almost all of France affected by a rainy year

In Paris, autumn 2024 was notably “the wettest since 1986”continues Météo France, adding that the year which has just passed has been “extraordinarily” humid in Île-de-France.

And this humidity is not limited to the Ile-de-France region, because almost all of France – apart from the Pyrénées-Orientales which are experiencing a chronic water deficit – experienced a rainy year. Like Paris, our colleagues from the local branch of France Bleu in Loire-Atlantique specify by way of example that 2024 was also the rainiest year ever recorded in Saint-Nazaire.

In an annual report published on December 19, Météo France already indicated that 2024 “ is among the ten rainiest years nationally (+15% compared to normal) ». However, it is in Paris and the other departments of Île-de-France that the precipitation anomaly is the most significant, with between « +44 % et +48 % » more rain compared to the annual average.

Temperatures continue to rise

As for the floors, they “ remained wetter than normal for eight months, unheard of in over thirty years”notes the national forecaster. The humidity of the soil was particularly remarkable “on a broad axis going from Nouvelle-Aquitaine to the Grand-Est. »

Ces « records humides » obviously do not mean that climate change has disappeared. Indeed, this bad weather did not prevent temperatures from continuing to rise. With the thermometer above 40°C in some regions, summer 2024 is the third consecutive summer above seasonal norms. In October, several cities crossed the 30°C mark for the first time. For Christmas Day, in Perpignan, the thermometer still showed 17 degrees…

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