37°C and 154 km/h of wind at 2 a.m.: what is this phenomenon that affected the POs last night?

ud83cudf21ud83cudf2cNew monthly record for maximum T°C. beaten last night at Cap Béar, with 37.0°C, ahead of the 36.4°C of June 28, 2019, and the third highest value of all months combined. Characteristic signal of a #heatburst :
u2705 rise in T ° C
u2705 dew point drop
u2705 sudden gusts https://t.co/Z0VGVdlX2v pic.twitter.com/XreL7PYwDZ

– Meteo-France South-East (@MeteoFrance_SE) June 15, 2022

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Sudden rise in temperature

A rare meteorological phenomenon, the “Heat burst” results in a sudden rise in temperature accompanied by strong gusts of wind. All this is combined with a dramatic drop in humidity. At Cap Béar, its level was close to 80% around midnight, before plummeting to 16% at 2:26 a.m.

The phenomenon is generally observed nearend-of-life thunderstorms. “As it weakened, the warm air mass aloft descended toward the ground and compressed the air below. The compression raised the temperature of the air, creating a strong hot gust,” say our colleagues from France 3.

62 years after Satan’s storm

The latter also report the latest “Heat burst” identified. In France, the precedent had been observed in Arquette-en-Val, last July. In less than half an hour, the mercury had jumped from 19.8 to 34.6 degrees, with a gust of wind recorded at 131 km / h.

The Pyrenean phenomenon comes in any case 62 years to the day after the most impressive ever recorded: the “storm of Satan” which had burned all the vegetation on its way to Texas in 1960. The temperature had then reached 60 degrees.

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