After a very rainy month of March, a spring break with record mild weather in the Gard ?

Un mois de mars particulièrement exposé aux épisodes pluvieux intenses. Midi Libre – MiKAEL ANISSET

Les vacances de printemps débuteront samedi 6 avril avec une remontée des températures dans le Gard. Un phénomène qui surviendrait après un mois de mars particulièrement arrosé.

After a particularly rainy Easter weekend in the Gard, will we experience hot weather before its time from Saturday April 6 and the start of the spring holidays for the academy of Montpellier ? This possible return of heat will come after a mild March but which experienced disrupted weather. An update on recent events and what awaits you next weekend.

A rainy month of March

The Gard was particularly exposed to bad weather last March with a terrible toll of six deaths during the weekend of March 9 and 10. A month which ended with a still disrupted Easter weekend, which placed the department on yellow or even orange alert for the flooding of the Rhône. One more alert.

Parked vehicles caught in the water had to be removed from the parking lot near the arenas and the Rhône this Monday in Beaucaire. The maximum level was reached on April 1 at 11:45 p.m. at the Beaucaire bridge (6:08 m, 62 centimeters from the flood of November 23, 2016). The waters were particularly raging at the Vallabrègues dam. The flow rate recorded at Tarascon exceeded 7,000,m3/second.

In addition, the waters of the Gardon and the Cèze rose quickly. The Gardon reached a maximum level of 4.89m on April 1, at 6.30am, far from the 8.27m on October 11, 2014. More Around fifteen bridges were closed to traffic at the peak of floods in the department last weekend. The wind blew strong too: 142 km/h on March 29 in Aigoual, 93 km/h in Nîmes on March 31 and 101 km/h in Aigues-Mortes the same day.

In March, the Météo France station in Nîmes Courbessac well exceeded a cumulative precipitation height of 215 millimeters, which had not happened, for that month, for more than 100 years. The last record dated from March 1960.

On March 9, the station also broke its record, dating from 1948, for precipitation falling in 24 hours, i.e. 104 mm, more than 300 mm. % surplus. On the Aigoual, the total amounted to 514 mm in March, below what Villefort recorded (784 mm) or in the neighboring Ardèche with surpluses of 500%!

The best for groundwater?

Were these rains in March beneficial to the water tables in Gard?? When asked, the prefecture was unable to respond to us this Tuesday, April 2. The site info-secheresses.fr gives an overview of the situation as of April 1 with the information recorded at the groundwater level measuring stations (piezometer). The Gard is currently in moderate drought. Sectors display a high or very high level: Milhaud, Rodilhan, Garons, Garons, Bezouce, Pont Saint-Nicolas, Rochegude, La Grand-Combe, Nîmes Courbessac.

Nîmes is classified as moderately low level. The most worrying areas of Gard are located in Saint-Gilles, Bourdic, Saint-Quentin-la-Poterie, Avèze, to a lesser extent in Aimargues, Le Cailar, Uchaud, Vergèze, Comps and Montfrin. The rains in March allow less recharge of the water tables due to evaporation, due to the mildness of March, and the resumption of vegetation.

A gentle start to April

Météo France forecasts announce the first days of cloudy spring holidays for the city of Nîmes with a significant rise in temperatures: 25-26°C for the weekend of 6 and April 7. We are far from the negative temperature of April 7, 2021 at the Nîmes Garons station and not yet at the record level of April 8, 2011 with more than 30%. deg;C.

CAMARGUE: interviewed, Bertrand Mazel, president of the Union of Rice Growers of France, indicates that these rains will delay work in the rice fields: "What makes us angry is to see all this water goes to the sea rather than retaining it while we complain of drought in summer. […] I don’t know if it’s exceptional in this period. You know, the great flood of 1856 occurred in the Camargue in May."

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