Extreme rain: France soon to be hit by tropical cyclones?

France has just experienced an extraordinary month of October. After a month of September which was the wettest in 25 years, new waves of precipitation have hit a large part of the country in recent weeks, causing flash floods and massive floods with devastating effects.

These phenomena include in particular Mediterranean depressions and Cévennes episodes, which, according to scientists, are intensifying under the effect of climate change. However, this is less obvious for the recent passage of Kirk, a tropical cyclone that became a category 4 hurricane, downgraded to a simple depression when it swept across a large part of the territory on Wednesday, October 9.

To date, no hurricane has yet hit Europe. However, in a warming climate, it is reasonable to fear that tropical phenomena could ultimately retain more power and humidity as they move towards our coasts.

To decipher the diversity of windy and rainy weather events that affect France, and assess the threat of a potential increase in low-latitude phenomena in the context of climate change, we interviewed Fabrice Chauvin, researcher at the National Center for Meteorological Research ( CNRM) from Météo-France and specialist in tropical cyclones.