Metropolitan France has not experienced real rain for 31 days, confirmed Météo-France this Tuesday, February 21. An absence of precipitation which equals the very recent record of 2020 and compromises the recovery of groundwater, depleted by the historic drought of last year.
30 days without rain: “Regions are already on drought alert, which usually only happens in the spring”
Since January 21, even if it has been able to rain punctually in certain places, the cumulative rainfall aggregated throughout the metropolis has been less than 1 mm every day. It has therefore been 31 days without rain, which is as much as between March 17 and April 16, 2020, in the midst of the first confinement of Covid-19.
If the lack of rain continues on Tuesday, the record will be broken but the series should end on Wednesday with “rains expected in the South”. Already, this episode has eclipsed the previous record for winter months – 22 days in 1989, during this crucial period for groundwater recharge.
Whatever happens, “February 2023 is expected to end with a rainfall deficit of more than 50%, becoming one of the driest Februarys on record since measurements began in 1959”, announced Météo-France.
This lack of rain “is mainly linked to the anticyclonic conditions since the end of January which acted as a sort of shield” against rain disturbances, explains Simon Mittelberger, climatologist at Météo-France. But beyond the singular episode, it is the recurrence of the phenomenon and the context that are worrying, illustrating the forecasts of UN experts on global warming linked to human activities, even if scientists have not yet attributed this specific drought to climate change.
The specter of a catastrophic summer 2023
“France is experiencing a worrying meteorological drought”recalls on the one hand Météo-France: “Since August 2021, all months have had a rain deficit except December 2021, June 2022 and September 2022”.
Drought in France: the water war is declared
In addition, this chronic deficit continues after exceptional heat waves and drought in the summer of 2022, symptoms of climate change. Almost all of the metropolitan departments had been placed on drought alert, with water restrictions for watering, irrigating or washing your car. But at the time, the seriousness of the situation had been tempered by a previous wet winter in most regions, which had allowed the aquifers to be recharged.
At the beginning of 2023, conversely, their filling is late. In January, the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (BRGM) was already saying “fairly pessimistic” on the availability next summer of groundwater, which provides two-thirds of drinking water and one-third of agricultural irrigation. If rain is so rare in 2023, “we will arrive at a much worse situation than the one we experienced at the end of summer 2022”had warned the office.
The risk of a “multi-year” drought
Magali Reghezza, geographer and member of the High Council for the Climate, worried about a possible repetition of winters without rain. “A multi-year drought, over several years, does exist: it’s like what has happened in California in recent years”she noted on Tuesday on France-Inter.
Drought: “If we don’t change course, France will look like California in ten years”
As a sign of concern, the government convened its “first hydrological anticipation and monitoring committee of the year” as looming “conflicts of use”ie tensions between the needs of agriculture, hydroelectricity production in dams, recreation (golf, canoeing, etc.) or the health of ecosystems. “We will have to change a certain number of practices. Golf courses can get complicated »believes Magali Reghezza.
Announced for the end of January, the government’s long-awaited water management plan has been postponed for several weeks.
In the meantime, departments are already suffering: the Pyrenees-Orientales have been on constant drought alert since June, suffering repeated fires in the middle of winter. And the majority of the Var was in turn placed on drought alert last Friday.
On the other side of the border, in Catalonia, water reserves currently only reach 28.7% of their capacity, compared to an average of 72% over the past ten years, according to the latest national hydrological bulletin.
