Toulouse. Blagnac, Francazal: why are there two weather stations in the Pink City?
By Quentin Marais
Published on
The weather forecast is, once again, reserving a heat wave for Toulouse during the week of July 14th. The Blagnac station is on the alert, while records could fall. But in the Pink City, she’s not the only one work !
Francazal in 1922, Blagnac in 1947
The first weather station in France’s fourth largest city is Toulouse Francazal. It was born on June 19, 1922, and was first located in the Saint-Simon Francazal area, until 1955, before definitively taking up residence on the airfield. But 10 years after the armistice of the Second World War, a second station had already been created. On Toulouse-Blagnac airportat an altitude of 151 meters, Francazal’s little sister was born on January 1, 1947.
“It’s related to airports”
How to explain that the Pink City then has two weather stations? Pascal Boureau, former forecaster for Météo France, explains “that it’s related to airports. Each time there is a fairly large airport, a weather station is deployed. In Paris, for example, there is Orly, Roissy and even Le Bourget”.
“The challenge is to have as many stations as possible. There are about ten in Haute-Garonne, plus occasional measurement points. It is part of the Météo France network, like the stations in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne) or Albi (Tarn) which are also on aeronautical platforms.
7 kilometers away
But the two stations “have the same role”. Seven kilometers apart, they have sometimes given rise to significant scenarios, such as the changing of the former meteorologist. “I remember, one day, having taken my vacation in Blagnac, it was -1 degree. And turning on the screens, there was +10 in Francazalbecause there was already a little breath of Autan which had softened at the end of the night in Francazal, and we therefore had a difference of more than 10 degrees between the two stations…”
A hiatus during the war
But the history of the Francazal station changed before its little sister was born. Pascal Boureau says: “there was the period of the Second World War, with a data interruption between 1943 and 1945, which means that we do not have a continuous series, which can go back to 1922″. A significant detail for meteorologists.
“With the break that occurred during the war period, we don’t have a continuous series, and it’s true that in weather, we like to have continuous series. And there were also some little problems at the end of the 1940s at Francazal, he missed a few weeks of data…”
Consequently, when it is a question, in particular, of evoking the average in Toulouse, it is Blagnac which is chosen as the reference station. “We take it to have the series really continueswith the observation of all the parameters”, adds Pascal Boureau.
The absolute record for maximum temperature in Toulouse belongs to Francazal
Of the two weather stations, Toulouse-Francazal holds the record for the maximum temperature observed in the Pink City. It was August 8, 1923, and 44 degrees had been recorded. The record noted in the Toulouse-Blagnac station is 40.7, during the heat wave episode of 2003. It was August 4 of the same year.
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