I think that every year around this time I write that we’ve had the worst ever winter since we moved to France ten years ago. Again this year it has been mostly cloudy and we’ve received a lot of rain. Of course, this is good to ground water levels and vegetation,  but it has also caused severe flooding, especially in the neighboring departments; just a couple of weeks ago there were several fatalities as cars tried to cross submerged bridges. In one of those cars was a family of four, only the mother was rescued, and the father and one of the kids were found in the following days.

We’ve had some sunny days, but not any significant sunny periods. The most sun we saw when we were not at home, but on the short 20-year anniversary vacation by the Mediterranean and the week-long Winter/Spring vacation in Haute-Alpes.

At the moment were on the third day into a exceptional “heatwave”: daytime temperatures, brought to us by strong and gusty Southerly winds, have been climbing to +18 – 22°C.  The wind does not bring us only warmth,  but also sand from Sahara. That’s why the “foggy” sky has a strange yellowish or orange hue. The above picture is from today’s morning run, in which we struggled to headwind for 12 kilometers. It was not fun!

But the nature is gradually turning green, and flowers are already blooming. And you already guessed: the weather forecast promises us more rain and cloudy days for the next two weeks.

PS. What makes things even worse is that the weather forecasts are inaccurate. Météo-Grenoble prides itself on being one of the few weather sites that offer quality forecasts by human beings (instead of bots that many sites use). The problem: they get their forecast phenomenally wrong, not just a little off, but often times the exact opposite of the actuality. This makes planning of any kind of outdoor activity hard. If the forecast tells the weather is going to be bad or hazardous, we don’t bother to plan any running (at least long runs) or hiking. Imagine our disappointment when the day turns out to be full of sunshine, and we’ve missed the opportunity. Similar disappointment, or anger, is caused by good weather suddenly turning bad mid-hike or run despite the forecast telling something else.