SW France Summer Weather 2015

We had a great holiday on Corsica a couple of weeks ago. And it was a good thing we went then, because we had nice weather for the most part. One week later and it would have been quite different: storms, torrential rain and flooding. Stages of the international car rally held there had to be cancelled because the weather was just too bad. Here are a few pix from our hols.

Summer 2015

And now, onto the weather here. The SF (Statistics Freak to the uninitiated, aka my husband) who has been compiling weather stats for nearly 18 years has disgorged his latest spreadsheet. This includes a summary for the months that he considers to equate to summer, May to September.

I should explain that we apply a subjective weather assessment technique. We assign each day a plus (good), a minus (bad) or a zero (in between). According to this measure, summer 2015 was pretty good. We considered 66% of the days to be pluses, compared to the average of 62.5%.

Some summers have been even better: 2003 (71%), 2009 (76%) and 2012 (72%) were all well over the average.

September

The average for the summer was dragged down a bit by September this year. Normally a gloriously warm month, it was variable this year:

Plus – 17
Zero – 10
Minus – 3

The chart shows the percentage of plus days each September for the past 18 years. The line is the trend – still upwards. This September is in the lower third, with two the same and four worse.

Rainfall

We had less rain than normal in September: 40.5 mm compared to the average of 55 mm, but it rained slightly more often.

The rainfall for the year to date is still above average: 663 mm compared to 634 mm, i.e. 4.6% above.

Changing seasons

Now we are definitely in autumn. Although the days can still be quite warm, the evenings are chilly and drawing in and we light the woodburner almost every night. But the autumn colours are starting, with crimson creeper festooning the hedgerows and some of the trees turning already. The walnuts are getting underfoot and need to be gathered. And I will soon have forgotten how it was to plunge into the swimming pool.

Here’s a French dicton (saying) for October.

En octobre, il faut que l’homme vite s’habille quand le mûrier se déshabille. In October, people should wrap up quickly when the mulberry tree loses its leaves (lit. undresses).