It's still cold

I know, I know. It's February. It's supposed to be cold. But we live in a climate zone that is normally tempered by the Atlantic Ocean (even this far inland) and harsh winters are not normal. In fact, this winter, until now, has been quite the opposite: very mild. Then suddenly, at the end of January, the winds shifted to the northeast and the Siberian frigid air started pouring in to France.

Out at the end of the vineyard road (right) where it joins the paved road (left).

The warm and wet Atlantic weather systems are blocked by the icy air. When one actually manages to push inland, the combination of the humid air from the west and the cold air from the east creates snow. And that's what's been happening this past week. The battle of the air masses!

The top story on the nightly news for a over a week now has been the weather. Cold and snow, traffic problems and school closings, and the homeless and hungry. The nuclear plants are running à plein régime (full steam, as it were) to keep up with the power demands; a lot of French households are heated by electricity. France's electricity prices are among the lowest in Europe because over 80% of it is produced by local nuclear plants.

Two regions, Brittany and Provence/Riviera, are on high alert because their power distribution networks were not built to handle such high demand. It's not normally this cold in those places.

After a few more days, we should be moving back into more seasonable temperatures. For us, that's days hovering around freezing (0ºC) and usually higher than that. Anything above freezing right now will feel downright balmy!