We all witnessed an exceptional year of weather, the most notable being the long hot drought. In fact Meteo France says it was the hottest year on record with an average temperature of 14ºC, some 1.4ºC above the norm. This placed it as the hottest year since the year 1900, beating 2014 and 2011. There was also a record run of 9 consecutive months above average. The drought has been recognised as an exceptional event and we at Mas del Sol actually had a taxe fonciere refund (all of 24 euros) owing to a loss of crops from our one field.
We can also attest that the year was exceptional in the number of lightning strikes experienced. There were 296 days when there was a storm and over 725000 strikes. Apparently May was particularly bad, our house being hit on May 7th by one of the 182125 impacts - three times the normal.
Storms were often accompanied by violent rain or hail storms. The storm which hit Bordeaux on 26th May dumped 22mms of rain in 6 minutes (one inch of rain is about 25mms).
Still, no such thing as global warming.
