Rain, finally! Rainfall will be stormy, numerous and regular in the Basque Country from Tuesday 16 August, even if the first drops brought by the storms began to fall on Saturday August 13, in the evening. Interview with Simon Rebouissoux, forecasting engineer at Météo France.
France Bleu Pays Basque: This rain comes after a long period of drought. When did it start exactly?
Simon Rebouissoux: We already know that July was the driest month ever recorded by Météo France. In Biarritz, for example, a rainfall deficit of around 93% was observed. It means that he no longer has only 7% of the participations that we should have had. In Cambo-les-bains, we have a rainfall deficit of 97% recorded, a record for this station. This drought started at the end of June. We had four heat waves in all, and that’s why we had this historic July.
A drought stopped by the storms that fell on the Basque Country on Saturday evening.
We have known since Saturday evening a change of weather. With thunderstorms around 7 p.m. which continued to circulate after along the Aquitaine. We didn’t have that much precipitation, we had about 10 millimeters of rain. It is rather on the Gironde and other departments of New Aquitaine that they brought their greatest precipitation.
When will it really rain then in the Basque Country?
For Monday, we will have at most a dry cloudy sky, with temperatures of 25 to 28 degrees. Tuesday, we will have a stormy degradation which will bring moderate accumulations to the Basque Country. So locally, we could have 15 to 30 mm. If we compare that with the millimeters that have fallen, for example in Cambo-les-Bains which had a record drought in July, it had fallen 2.8 mm. There, it could fall between 15 to 30 mm! For Wednesday, the sky will remain very cloudy with very rainy weather and due to a sustained westerly flow with good gusts, especially on the coast. We could therefore still have a lot of precipitation.
Stormy or regular rainfall?
Given the expected accumulations, it will be stormy precipitation that can be continuous over a certain period of time, longer than a classic downpour (about 15/20 minutes). Precipitation that could fall in a fairly significant amount, with local accumulations of 30 to 50 mm throughout the period. It will be fairly continuous precipitation and not like the thunderstorms we had on Saturday evening.
Before the return of the sun on Friday August 19.
Yes, from Friday afternoon and for the weekend. We will have an improvement with the return of dry and sunny weather and temperatures will return to 30 degrees.