Weather in southwest France: July 2010 update

Every month I post an update on how the weather has been, based on the statistics we have kept since 1998. To see the other weather posts, please click on ‘Weather’ under the Topics tab in the right-hand sidebar.

The Statistics Freak has been beside himself with satisfaction as the weather records have tumbled this year. Following the second worst June in our 13-year weather history, this July has been one of the best. In fact, during the latter part of June and the first few weeks of July, we had an unbroken spell of fine weather for a record 29 successive days. Here are the figures:

1. Weather assessment for July:

A quick reminder of our subjective weather assessment: we assign each day a plus if it’s fine, a minus if it’s bad and a zero if it’s indifferent or we can’t decide. In July, there were:

Pluses – 25
Zeros – 5
Minuses – 1

The graph shows the percentage of plus days each July for the past 13 years (the line is the trend). July seems to be improving, although there is a lot of variation. There were more pluses in July 2009 and July 2006 than this year and the same number in July 2003.

2. Rainfall

Our rainfall stats go back to August 2004. This July was slightly drier than the average over this period with 29mm (average 31.1mm). It rained on 3 days compared with the average of 6 days for July.

Here’s a dicton about August that I found on the Internet:

‘Si août est pluvieux, l’hiver sera rude’ (if August is rainy, the winter will be hard).

Since we don’t want another winter like the last one, let’s all hope for fine weather this month.

Finally, I also found a little poem about the rain, which I have translated loosely (in order to get the rhymes).

Oh! La pluie, la pluie, la pluie, quel bonheur!
Pour les grenouilles, et les bambous!
Oui, mais certainement pas pour nous!
Il faudra pourtant s’y faire,
Car l’Automne s’est installé!
Installé? Dites-vous?
Mais, il ne nous a pas quitté!
Puisq’nous n’avions point eut d’été,
C’est déjà lui qui l’avait remplacé.

[Oh! The rain, the rain, the rain, what bliss
For the frogs and the bamboo!
Yes, but certainly not for you.
We have to make do, though,
For autumn has arrived.
Arrived, you say?
But you know it never went away.
Summer never showed its face,
For autumn had already taken its place.]