Rain in the South of
France
In our Department 300 days of sunshine
are often talked about, but what about the other 65 days of
the year.
On average ten of them are heavy rain,
bordering on tropical, when the wind howls and the rain
falls like stair rods. A month’s rain can fall in a couple
of days, and each time it happens, the locals can be heard
to say “Je ne jamais vue”
The consolation is, the following
morning, or the day after that, the skies will be back to
blue, and all signs of the bizarre amounts of rain will have
disappeared. It will only be the vignerons who continue to
worry, in case the excessive amount of water will swell the
grapes so much, that they burst.
When we first moved to the area in 1985
we were told that “it never rains in the midi”, but
of course I realized that that could not be correct.
Eventually after much questioning I was told that the rain
fell, “normalement” for a week in February and a
further week in October, and that it would rain non stop for
five days.
For the first few years, that was
exactly correct, and when it started you could cancel any
outdoor activity for those five days.
Over the twenty years that we have
lived here the weather has changed, and those two periods of
five days have now been replaced by the same number of days
but spread over a longer period of time in the Spring and
Autumn giving the impression that the weather is becoming
more like UK weather, but 5 degrees centigrade warmer.
Many residents of the UK dream of
coming to the South of France to escape the winter weather,
believing that we don’t have a winter. In fact the winters
can be cold with early morning frosts. The benefit however
is that during the day it will be mainly sunny with clear
blue skies, and often warm enough to eat out on a sheltered
terrace. Snow is rarer and in our twenty years here we have
seen snow three times.
During the summer months it is not
unknown for a day of rain, and local residents for the most
part are pleased to get a respite from the burning sun.
Unfortunately the tourists who have saved all year to come
on their annual two week holiday are not so enthusiastic.
September will often see violent
thunderstorms or more often dry storms and quite often there
will be days when it is grey and overcast and looks certain
to rain. When we first moved here, I often put off watering
our vegetable garden when rain threatened, only to discover
the next morning, that it had remained dry. I have wised up,
and nowadays I can be seen watering the vegetables even when
it looks as though it will rain imminently, but most of the
time I have been right to do so.
Locations of Serious
flooding in France
Just prior to the grape harvest, that
takes place in early September, the nightmare of the wine
farmer is hailstones. Hail can strip every leaf and bunch of
grapes off the vines.
Most villages advertise the fact that
they have a “micro climate” and so it will not be unusual to
hear the residents repeat the phrase “Je ne jamais vue”.
Undoubtedly for someone it will be a period that they have
never seen before. The south of France is often affected by
these bizarre storms that throw up a horrific amounts of
rain somewhere or the other, and comes as part of the price
of living in an area where for the most part the weather is
semi tropical.
In our village on Sunday 26th
January 1996 there was a catastrophic flood that became
national headlines on the television and newspapers for a
week, and warranted a visit by the then Prime Minister
Lionel Jospin. It had been raining here almost every other
day since September and the ground was saturated. The
equivalent of a years worth of rain had fallen during those
three months and then finally on that Sunday it fell like
stair rods.
The only river was at the lowest point
of the village and presented no danger. The normally
efficient system of drainage ditches had become filled with
debris over a period of time. Unbeknown at that time, the
hill at the back of the village which is, for the most part,
a plateau, had a rock underlay below the surface of the
earth. This formed a basin that over the previous three
months had reached saturation point. Suddenly it released
the water that had accumulated, in the same way that the
siphon flushes in the toilet, which then cascaded towards
the village. Against the odds at that very moment, the rain
changed to hail and quickly clogged the remainder of the
ditches. Equally as quick the flood water melted the hail
and the resulting wave of water left large parts of the
village under a meter of water and in some parts two meters.
Cars were swept down the main street and a large fuel tanker
was washed into a private swimming pool. Firemen tied to
railings by rope jumped into the tidal wave of water to
rescue people being swept through the village still in their
cars.
It was the time of the annual winter
fete, and a visiting fair was parked on the show ground at
the lower level of the village. There a young teenager of 14
who had been sheltering in a caravan was swept away, and two
other children were carried away from the roof of the car,
where they had climbed for safety.
As quick as the flood water arrived it
disappeared, and the task of rebuilding the village started.
Previously projected anti-flood measures were quickly
constructed. A new school and fire station were built on the
outskirts of the village where there are no foreseen
dangers.
Throughout the south of France large
ditches can be seen alongside roads and 'criss crossing' the
vinyards, and it is not until these sudden storms arise that
people can see their value. Ditches two meters across and
two meters deep remain empty for many years and then
suddenly they becoming raging torrents for two or three
hours and then remain empty until the next deluge that once
again brings the comment “Je ne jamais vue”
It is said that the British are
obsessed with the weather but the French, are, in many ways
more so. For when it rains here you must believe that the
same amount of rain that falls in the UK during a year is
falling during those 10 days of rain.
But I would ask you not to feel too
sorry for us, for on Christmas Day, you can be sure that we
will probably be walking on the beach at Valras, and then
return home to eat our midday meal on the terrace under
clear blue skies and sunshine.
|
