Santurette, Patrick (Service Central d'Exploitation de la Meteorologie, Meteo-France, France)
Although France is located for the most part in the atlantic temperate zone, the countries of southern France belong to the nediterranean world. Every year, the mediterranean part of france is hit by episodes of severe weather endangering people security. So the french meteorologists take a great interest in the mediterranean meteorology.
We want to present here a review of the different types of tmospheric systems occuring over occidental mediterranean sea or originating from this particular area and bringing severe weather over a part of France, essentially strong winds and heavy precipitations. We will show several cases of atmospheric situations representative of these systems hitting the french mediterranean countries: examples of situations giving rise to strong convective events, examples of mediterranean cyclogenesis and of situations giving severe snowfall which is unusual on this part of France.
But the mediterranean influence over weather in France is not limited to the mediterranean countries: the role of the mediterranean sea as tank of moist and warm air can be sensitive beyond the mediterranean countries.
In some particular atmospheric situations, the activity of an atlantic frontal system enhanced by an air mass coming from the mediterranean sea can induce severe precipitations more in the north than mediterranean countries. We could show such an example of a typical precipitation event where the mediterranean influence on the air mass is crucial.