The Mistral is blowing. The basic phrase about the Mistral is 3. 6 or 9, meaning how many days in a row it will blow. My town is 10 minutes from the Provence border so we are legally in Languedoc but its really Provence. We share all of the wind, rain and fire. But right now wind which is making it quite chilly here. You can sit in the sun and get burned but go into the shade and you will shiver. We have a nine day Mistral right now and by Wednesday the sun will be out (it during the Mistral as it clears all dirt or sand in the air) and be 60-70 F for most of next week, going forward. Time to plant.
In the Languedoc area, where the tramontane is the strongest wind, the mistral and the tramontane blow together onto the Gulf of Lion and the northwest of the western Mediterranean, and can be felt to the east of the Balearic Islands, in Sardinia, and sometimes as far as the coast of Africa.
When the mistral blows from the west, the mass of air is not so cold and the wind only affects the plain of the RhĂ´ne delta and the CĂ´te dâAzur. The good weather is confined to the coast of the Mediterranean, while it can rain in the interior. The CĂ´te dâAzur generally has a clear sky and warmer temperatures. This type of mistral usually blows for no more than one to three days.
The mistral originating from the northeast has a very different character; it is felt only in the west of Provence and as far as Montpellier, with the wind coming from either a northerly or north-northeasterly direction. In the winter this is by far the coldest form of the mistral. The wind can blow for more than a week. This kind of mistral is often connected with a low pressure area in the Gulf of Genoa, and it can bring unstable weather to the CĂ´te dâAzur and the east of Provence, sometimes bringing heavy snow to low altitudes in winter.
When the flow of air comes from the northeast due to a widespread low pressure area over the Atlantic and atmospheric disturbances over France, the air is even colder at both high altitudes and ground level, and the mistral is even stronger, and the weather worse, with the creation of cumulus clouds bringing weak storms. This kind of mistral is weaker in the east of Provence and the CĂ´te dâAzur.
The mistral is not always synonymous with clear skies. When a low pressure front over the Mediterranean approaches the coast from the southeast, the weather can change quickly for the worse, and the mistral and its clear sky changes rapidly to an east wind bringing humid air and threatening clouds. The position of the low-pressure front creates a flow of air from the northwest or the northeast, channeled through the Rhône Valley. If this low-pressure area moves back toward the southeast, the mistral will quickly clear the air and the good weather will return; but if the cold-weather front continues to approach the land, bad weather will continue for several days in the entire Mediterranean basin, sometimes transforming into what French meteorologists call an Êpisode cÊvenol, a succession of torrential rains and floods, particularly in the areas west of the Rhône Valley: the Ardèche, the Gard, HÊraultand Lozère.[[7]](Mistral (wind) - Wikipedia
