France matches dry spell record of 31 days without rain

Tuesday, France has matched its record dry spell of 31 days without significant rainfall, the country's weather service said amid concerns over water reserves in parts of Europe still reeling from last year's severe drought.

With rainfall over the entire country of less than one millimeter a day since Jan. 21, weather service Meteo France said the absence of precipitation equals the record set in the spring of 2020.

Winter is normally a crucial period for recharging groundwater levels with rainfall.

This number of days without rain has "never been seen" in winter before in records going back to 1959, Meteo France said Tuesday.

Last month was the third-warmest January on record in Europe, with temperatures on New Year's Day reaching all-time highs in some parts of the continent, according to the European Union's Copernicus climate monitor (C3S).

That came after Europe endured its second-hottest year ever in 2022, with France, Britain, Spain and Italy setting new average temperature records, compounded by severe drought.

Crops withered in European breadbaskets and the historic drought, unprecedented in centuries, drove record wildfire intensity and placed severe pressure on the continent's power grid and water reserves.

The World Weather Attribution service last year calculated that the agricultural and ecological drought over the Northern Hemisphere was at least 20 times likelier because of human-caused climate change, warning that such extreme dry periods would become increasingly common with global heating.