Yellowed fields and low waterways. The summer of 2022 has been particularly hot this year in France. It’s even the hottest summer ever recorded in the Basque Country since the opening of the Biarritz weather station in 1953. “We had extremely hot temperatures, with four episodes of heat wave, which started very early, from May“confirm Thomas Beauquesne, forecaster at Météo France. Between June 1 and August 31, “the average maximum temperatures were between two and four degrees above seasonal norms depending on the city.“With maximum temperatures exceeded, both in the interior and on the coast.
Temperature records broken
“The most marked heat wave is that of June“reveals Thomas Beauquesne. For example, on June 18, the heat record was broken in Cambo-les-Bains, with 43.2° displayed on the thermometer. Ditto in Biarritz, where the same day the mercury reached 42.9°. “For Biarritz, the average maximum is 26.1°, almost a degree more than the previous record of 2015, which was 25.2°. Over the whole summer, this is important.“Note that the highest values were found on the coast,”due to a continental flow coming from the South-East, the air mass warmed up inland before arriving on the coast“, even if the interior Basque Country was also very hot, with 42° recorded in Aïcirits on June 18th.
“Not the driest summer”
The summer of 2022 was also very dry. “For example in Biarritz, we had only 22 days of rain in three months, compared to around thirty in normal times, explains Thomas Beauquesne. On the Biarritz station, we have a deficit of 40% of cumulative precipitation, that is to say that we had only 154 mm of rain while for a normal summer, it should fall about 260 mm.” However, the summer of 2022 is not the driest ever recorded in the Basque Country. “We are still very far from minimum rainfall records. For example, in 1976, we only recorded 30 mm of rain in three months, that’s five times less than what we had this summer.”
For this fall, it is difficult to say if it is possible to have late heat waves, just as this year the first two arrived particularly early. “We can only anticipate a warmer than normal scenario, but impossible to say if what we experienced in May and June can happen again in September or October..” To note that the low groundwater level is more due to the lack of precipitation in winter than to the drought this summer.