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The Great British Facination with the Weather!


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We've been back and forth to France for holidays since 1995 and this is our third summer here more permanently.  We are well used to appalling summers in the UK, but we can't remember a previous July in France as disappointing as this one from a weather point of view.......pretty cool and wet here since the beginning of the month[:(][:(]

Is this unusual?

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I was driving back from an errand yesterday, the temp gauge in the car was reading 16 degrees, it was raining, or should I say it was drizzling.  It's exactly the same weather we used to have in the UK for several summers on the run.  One thing to take cumfort from though is we did have a scorching two months before and (hopefully) will have a couple more nice months before the years out.  I have been so tempted to light the log burner, brrrr.

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[quote user="JK"]It better warm up soon - it's costing us a small fortune as the guests are using the sauna more often! And we lit the woodburner last night![/quote]

 

I think we'll be lighting ours tonight, as it was really miserable yesterday evening, watching tv wrapped in throws.....  Unfortunately, looking at the 10 day forecast for this area on Orange.fr, it doesn't look very different. 

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Yes, the British are fascinated with the weather.

But the French are fascinated by the temperature.  It is plastered all over the place - on factories, on pharmacies - and everyone talks about a day being 30 degrees or 25 degrees etc.  The sea temperature is given out on the public address system.  Everyone tells you their pool temperatures.  You can't get away from them.

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The french are just as fascinated with the weather. It is a usual subject of conversation, be it wet, dry, cold, hot, stormy, even foggy.

I have known plenty of poor summers, they are not the ones that I remember best though, it is the canicule ones that I remember with revulsion; I can cope with cool and drizzle, I have clothes to keep me dry and warm me, the canicule is simply cruel.

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[quote user="Sprogster"]Apparently, we might have to get used to more unsettled summers and colder winters. Something to do with melting polar ice cap disrupting Gulf stream and reduced sun spot activity.[/quote]

 

Yes, I understood things were possibly going to be like  that too and my  Dad is driving me MAD, he keeps saying why isn't it getting hotter with global warming and I have been telling him for years that it will probably get colder. And still some journalists mention global warmning, not so often, I admit, but enough for it to still 'register' with him.

 

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idun,

you can tell your Dad that it is partly global warming, but because the UK and large parts of France are so reliant on the Gulf stream for its benign weather relative to the latitude, the resulting disruption to the Gulf stream might make our weather worse!
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[quote user="frexpt"]

We've been back and forth to France for holidays since 1995 and this is our third summer here more permanently.  We are well used to appalling summers in the UK, but we can't remember a previous July in France as disappointing as this one from a weather point of view.......pretty cool and wet here since the beginning of the month[:(][:(]

Is this unusual?

[/quote]

Form 2 Geography

The British Isles and the European coastal mainland from Norway to the Iberian peninsular are all subject to a maritime climate, characterised by mild winters and cool summers with precipitation at all times of the year. Deux-Sevres is on the western side of France not far from the Atlantic coast. It suffers the same kind of weather as the British Isles, but being further south solar radiation is stronger so that when the sun shines it will be warmer. But the grass is always green - made possible by frequent rain.

Unpredictability in European weather can be caused by the polar jet stream, which, despite its name, can meander quite a long way south.

If you want more certainty in weather, you have to move further east into the Mediterranean climate zone.

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[quote user="idun"]

The french are just as fascinated with the weather. It is a usual subject of conversation, be it wet, dry, cold, hot, stormy, even foggy.

I have known plenty of poor summers, they are not the ones that I remember best though, it is the canicule ones that I remember with revulsion; I can cope with cool and drizzle, I have clothes to keep me dry and warm me, the canicule is simply cruel.

[/quote]

Absolutely agree Idun, I never want to live again through a canicule like the one we had in 2003

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I keep explaining to my Dad, but I think he is of an age now where he does not give a xxxx actually and will happily say and do as he pleases. I have been telling him the same thing for years about possible global cooling with full explanations about the gulf stream etc, but he just goes on reading his fountain of knowledge and wisdom, the Daily Mail and quotes it.

Cendrillon, I hope that I never have to be anywhere that hot ever again.

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The safest stance to take in the climate debate is to state categorically that the climate is definitely changing.

For 4.5 billion years the Earth's climate has been in a state of constant change. There seems little reason to think, therefore, that suddenly, in the late 20th / early 21st century, the climate should remain stable.

So...............do I believe in climate change? Oh yes!

Do I think we can do anything about it? Ah, that's a whole other subject.
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Yes, the whole planet is changing all the time.

On french tv I remember a report saying that bit by bit North Africa was moving north and eventually would touch southern europe. I often wondered what Jean Marie Le Pen thought of that[Www]

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[quote user="powerdesal"]CdL, Early 90s, over 100 - hells teeth, I thought it was hot in the Middle East when it hit 45 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!http://www.completefrance.com/cs/images/emotions/biggrin.gif[/quote]

 

[:D][:D][:D]

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