The Caetano storm, the very strong polar depression crossed France on Thursday November 21, 2024. It brought with it heavy early snowfall and exceptional gusts of violent winds. Its unusual trajectory, starting from the island of Ouessant, crossed France from Brittany to the northern Alps, even reaching Lake Geneva and Switzerland. Faced with this very early winter, what do the weather models predict for Christmas 2024 in France?
Weather forecast for a very early winter
More than 250,000 homes were without power, dozens injured and trains blocked in the middle of the night. This is for the moment the results of the passage of the Caetano storm, which hit France on the night of November 20 to 21.
French authorities announced that the storm would officially leave the country. The main risk is that the snow accumulated over two days turns into ice, causing new accidents. This Sunday morning, 10,000 homes were still without electricity after the passage of this storm Caetano.
According to Enedis, the electricity network manager, the most affected regions are Normandy (5,300) and Pays de Loire (4,700).
Currently, for this day Monday Météo France has placed 9 departments on orange vigilance. Especially due to strong winds.
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The departments that this orange vigilance concerns are Allier, Puy-de-Dôme, Saône-et-Loire, Rhône, Loire, Haute-Loire, Jura, Ain and Isère. Occitanie therefore escaped the effects of the storm.
Caetano's trajectory created a strong contrast between the cold air present north of the Loire and the rapid warming coming from the southwest. Which therefore caused “ideal” conditions for a weather event of exceptional magnitude.
Snowfall, unusual for the month of November, affected large areas of the plains. While gusts of wind reached record intensity between the Atlantic coast and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.
Will Christmas 2024 be white?
This cold Arctic air weather event in Europe is relevant to the period due to exceptional snowfall in Switzerland and France. The episode that the passage of the disruption Caetano generated is remarkable by its intensity and its broken records.
This significant snowy episode, with snowfall, affected Normandy, the Paris region and other neighboring regions. In Normandy, Météo France recorded accumulations of between 20 and 30 cm. Exceptional values for the month of November! 4 cm of snow in Paris-Montsouris, a figure not seen since November 1968.
In France, we have to go back to November 2010 to find significant snowfall in the Paris region, with 30 cm recorded in Orléans.
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While in the popular imagination we often associate snow with Christmas… This probability tends to decrease in the face of climate change and disruption. But will we be snowed in during Christmas 2024?
According to Météo France data, Snow episodes at Christmas are rare over most of France.
All these climatic upheavals mean that Météo France experts have not yet commented. Indeed, it would still be too early for the latter to announce the weather for the end of year holidays.
For now, we won't have to count on The Weather Channel to make us dream of a white Christmas, like in the Christmas movies! “On the scale of the November/December/January quarter, temperatures forecast in France should remain above seasonal averages (based on the last 30 years) with a difference close to +0.5° to +1°C »she writes, in fact.
