The strange record drought in France this winter

Courtesy Meteo France

There was a strange record drought that occurred in France this winter in which Meteo FranceMeteo France Météo-France is the official service of meteorology and climatology in France. claim that there was no rain in France from the 21st of January 2023 to the 20th of February. I say strange because although it was dry at some sites across France, notably in the south, many other places did record some rain during that period as you can see from the chart below.
Meteo France goes onto explain “we speak of a day without rain when the total aggregate precipitation over France is less than 1 mm”. All that you can assume from what they say, is that they like the UKMOUKMO The Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, they have some kind of gridded data series in which the average precipitation for the whole of France for that particular period was less than 1 mm. I’m not going to tot up all the rainfalls totals from WMOWMO The World Meteorological Organisation is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. block #07, but I’d wager without allowing for extent the average would be higher than 1 mm.

Drought, Meteo France

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