“The soils are so parched that floods are to be feared”

Will floods follow the cruel lack of water, in the departments in which Météo France announces thunderstorms this Sunday? The climate dynamician Yves Tourre considers this risk possible due to the severe state of dryness of the soil, which could cause runoff of rainwater. He adds, however, that the rains to come on Sunday and throughout next week are good news for agriculture.

“The soils are so parched they look like mineralization”explains Yves Tourre, while we are experiencing a soil drought never seen since 1958. “That is to say that the water, the rain that is coming now, cannot percolate, infiltrate the soil So you need good rainfall for at least ten days so that the water doesn’t run off and go somewhere else or cause flooding.”

The good news is that these rains are expected to last. “From Tuesday, we have rains that we call synoptic rains which come from the Atlantic, and which will then merge with these upwellings from the South-West that we have this weekend, so we will have a maximum rain over the whole of France in the week”, adds the specialist. “And it could be good for agriculture because of the water penetrating into the soil.”

But don’t these rains come too early, since the water tables are normally recharged in winter? “It’s true that groundwater recharge comes after winter, snowmelt, etc.”answers Yves Tourre. “But here, I don’t think we can say too early or too late: we need to hydrate the soil deeply, so it’s not going to have a direct impact on groundwater. But it should help the agriculture. The only problem we can have is this significant runoff which can lead to local flooding, especially in the center of France, the Rhône valley, the Dordogne, Champagne and the South-West.”