Climate of the Cantal

The Cantal is declined in three climatic zones, with more or less frank transitions between these zones:

1) the west (suboceanic) is exposed to the disturbances of Atlantic origin which are reactivated in contact with the hills and low plates of Chestnut grove and Xaintrie. Pluviometry is marked: averages of 117 cm/an with Maurs, 140 cm with St Saury, 131 cm with Pleaux, 121 cm with Mauriac.

The fact that Aurillac is in the televised bulletins the only weather station located in altitude contributed to the reputation of coldness of the Cantal. However, at equivalent altitude and latitude, the department is not colder than others. The Country of Maurs, around 300 meters of altitude, is even particularly soft and thermically nearer to the Aquitanian Basin than of the Massif Central: averages of + 3° in January and + 19° in July. Compared to the remainder of the department, higher, the temperatures with Aurillac (600 m) are still lenient: + 2° in January with + 17° in July.

Snow is frequent in winter but seldom tough on the ground beyond a few days.

Except in some steepsided valleys or near fog, storage reservoirs and morning fog are rather rare and support a good sunning (2080 hours average/year with Aurillac).

The landscape, of the woodlands or forest (oaks, beeches, chestnuts), finds the greenery as from April-May and generally preserve during the summer (from where its nickname of “green country”). 2) the mountains (suboceanic cold): the Mounts of the Cantal, in the middle of the department, as well as the high plateaus of Cézallier (in north) and Aubrac (in the south), are like the west very exposed with the Atlantic disturbances. Because of their advanced Western position and their higher altitude, the Mounts of the Cantal are sprinkled (average with 162 cm/an with Salers, 178 cm with Vic-on-Cère, 226 cm in Lioran and probably 250 cm close to Puy Mary: French pluviometric maximum). They appreciably protect Cézallier by flow from South-west (“only” 126 cm/an with Marcenat) as well as Aubrac by flow of the North-West (130 cm/year with St Urcize).

The average temperatures around 1200 m go from -1° in January to + 13° in July. Around 1800 m: -4° with + 9° (of cold can occur the night in summer).

In bond with the abundance of precipitations, snowing up grows quickly with altitude:

- approximately a month per annum of snow on the ground around 800 meters

- 3 months around 1200 m (distributed between November and April with important fluctuations due to the oceanic rises in temperature)

- up to 6 months close to more the high summits (the combination of the wind of west and the solar radiation makes that the north-eastern slopes are the best snow-covered ones with firns until June - July, even August as in 1996 and 2006). The image of “mountain with cows” of the Cantal can mask a particularly hard winter reality: alternation freezing-thawing due to the oceanic character is more testing for the vegetation that a constant cold (thus high limit of the forest - beeches, fir trees is located around 1500 m instead of 2000 meters in the Alps). The peaks and the plates are intensely icy. Moreover the risk of avalanches should not be minimized: some devastated forests on several hundred meters (Puy Violent and Puy Mary, 2006, while pouring northern - Chapeloune, 1996, while pouring southern).

The high pastures reverdissent in May - June.

These last years (2003-2006) Aubrac, southernmost, knew a new series of drynesses which perhaps precedes the climate change.

3) is (fresh subcontinental): after being itself discharged on the relief, the disturbances are weakened (effect Foehn) and, in spite of many storms from May to September, the pluviometric office pluralities fall: averages of 94 cm/an with Al, 88 cm with Heat-Acute, 78 cm with St Flour, 60 cm with Massiac (one of the driest sites of France). In Margeride, the site of Lastic, by the conjunction of favorable exposures, constitutes a wet enclave with 120 cm.

High average altitude (900 m) explains the rather low temperatures: with St Flour, they go from 0° in January to + 15° in July. Massiac, to 550 m in valley, fact exception: averages of + 1° in January and + 18° in July.

The flow of north, much more sensitive than to the west of the Cantal, accentuates the winter cold with wind (" écir") on the plates and tough fogs and fogs.

Snow is more frequent than abundant (generally dry cold), but can hold on the ground several weeks of continuation, even several months on the Mounts of Margeride located at the limit of the Haute-Loire and climatically closer to this department than of the other Chantillian mountains.

After an episode of greenery at the end of the spring, the landscape is drained during the summer. The woodland pine, rather rare in the remainder of the department, is the tree dominating of the Chantillian east because it resists the dryness well (relative). But one finds also oaks (in valleys), beeches (in slopes north and Margeride) and fir trees (Margeride).

Source: Weather of France (J.Kessler/R.Chambraud)

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