Winter is here: temperatures in France are set to drop to up to -10C in some areas this week, and minus figures are forecast across the entire country by this Sunday (December 11).
Negative temperatures have already arrived for some, with -6C recorded today (Wednesday, December 7) in Saint-Etienne (Loire) and Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme).
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Temperatures will continue to drop all week, ending with temperatures far below the seasonal norms.
Sunday is set to be the coldest day, with temperatures forecast to plummet to -10C in some mountain regions in the morning, including the Alps, Jura, and Massif Central. Across the rest of the country, it will be around -2C to -5C.
Snow could fall in the north west. La Chaîne météo forecasting service wrote: “Snowfall will be on the cards once again, with the arrival of a new weather disturbance to the northwest. The hills of Normandy and Brittany could then be dusted with snow."
Le #gel va progressivement s'étendre au fil des jours et s'intensifiera ce week-end. Tout d'abord, le sud sera épargné avec un épisode pluvio-neigeux, puis l'air froid envahira toute la France samedi. pic.twitter.com/VY03Ga9Yve
— La Chaîne Météo (@lachainemeteo) December 6, 2022
The south will escape the worst of the cold today, Thursday, and Friday (December 8-9), but by this weekend even the southernmost towns will be affected. Only Corsica and some areas on the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines will escape.
In some areas of the country, there will be a risk of snow at much lower altitudes than normal.
La Chaîne météo.wrote that on Saturday, “the weather should be variable and cold over the whole country with some sleet in higher regions, in the form of snow at very low altitude".
Temperatures are expected to sit between 0C and 6C across the country, generally lower than the 3-4C average typically seen at this time of year in France.
The cold will continue into Monday, December 12, with temperatures set to remain on average 5C below the norms for the season. The average will be just -0.5C across the country.
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