In summary
Records for the number of days without sunshine have fallen in several cities.
Many French cities have seen on average less than an hour of sunshine per day since the end of October.
Over the period from 1is September to November 6, many weather stations recorded less sunshine this year than the average over the last twenty years.
The phenomenon has not gone unnoticed in places: for at least ten days, the sun has disappeared. This is particularly the case in Maine-et-Loire where, at the Angers-Beaucouzé weather station, we record “a historic record”. “This Friday, it will be ten consecutive days without a minute of sunshine”notes Laurent Belsœur, consulting meteorologist at Météo France at the Beaucouzé station.
Maine-et-Loire is not the only department in this situation. In Rennes, the sun has not shone for a single minute since the beginning of November; ditto in Nantes and Laval.
This situation is caused by intense and stubborn fogs, which are expected to last for several more days, and be accompanied by a drop in temperatures.
One hour of sunshine in 14 days…
The Météociel site broadcasts sunshine data from numerous weather stations in France. This is the measurement of the time a sensor is exposed to sunlight.
Over the last 14 days, from October 25 to November 7, many cities have had a starving total. Barely more than an hour of sunshine in Blois and Tours, 3 hours in Nantes, 3 and a half hours in Angers…
Here is the map of the average number of hours of sunshine per day over the period for around a hundred French stations:
The gray blanket of recent days concerns specific territories. Along the Loire, on the north side, is the area where the sunshine was the weakest, as well as the north of the country. The Breton coasts, thanks to the sea winds dissipating the mists, had their dose of sunshine.
The regions located south of the Loire were also spared from the constant gray weather. With more than a hundred hours of sunshine, and an average daily sunshine of 7.5 hours, Ajaccio displays a big blue sky.
Here is the detail by city, with the number of hours of sunshine per day from October 25 to November 7:
Much less sun than usual
Mist in November, Christmas in December, some say jokingly. Indeed, grayness in autumn is not very surprising. But such a series of days without sun is still astonishing.
We searched the open data from Météo France for average sunshine for the months of September, October and the first days of November, from 2000 to 2023. We then compared this year's measurements with the average reference for the period 2000-2023.
For all the stations studied, autumn 2024 clearly displays below-average sunshine:
The largest gap is in Poitiers. The resort recorded fewer than two hours of sunshine this fall than usual. Bourges (Cher), Beaucouzé (Maine-et-Loire), Tours (Indre-et-Loire) and Orléans (Loiret) are also among the cities which noted the largest deviations from the 2000-2023 average.
According to the revolutionary calendar, in force from 1793 to 1806, the period from October 22 to November 20 was called the month of Brumaire. As it turns out, the phenomenon is indeed seasonal, even if it is particularly marked this year.
