I bet it is unbearable in the summer though in the Lot…the intense heat? Even Brive is too hot for us!! That’s the good thing about the plateau, the cooler nights in summer. Even in the daytime we can be 6 degrees or so cooler than Brive, which is often in the 40’s now. The downside is when we get a mild (ish) winter like this one it seems to be permanently grey and wet. Combine that with 3-5 degrees daytime temperature for weeks on end and it’s thoroughly unpleasant. People who have lived here decades have never known it this bad. Very difficult to get anything done outside.
You need to come down here to my neck of the woods (coastal 66), 18°C this afternoon out front of the house and still no rain since March 2022 other than a spray a couple of time since then. Some of the long dry riverbeds locally have a little water fast flowing for the past couple of weeks as snow melting on the mountains has made the barrages open their sluices to let some out.
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I’m not telling you that, we’ll have everyone moving here!
(Very south of 86, close to the highest point in the Vienne)
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Sounds extreme. I guess you are already in the rain shadow of the Pyrenees in a dryish area anyway. You are welcome to some of our rain. Some communes near us had even more rain than us in 2023 and 2021mm is frankly far too much! The climate is becoming so extreme. We had droughts here in 2019, 2020. Didn’t rain for over three months. Our money and funds are limited, but I simply cannot envisage staying in north Correze for the next couple of decades if we have years like 2023 every year and winters like the current one. C’est too much!!
The Millevache is like that, one year totally different from the next. We had -25 C every night for 2 weeks one February (2008 ish) and 1.5 m snow. Next year it was t shirt and shorts and bbq time. Some years very wet, some extremely dry, summers hot but we’ve also seen snow in September . The only certainty about the weather on the Millvache is it’s uncertainty.
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We have been over this way since 2018. So a good six years nearly. I am finding the climate quite harsh compared to places I have lived in the UK (I’m a keen horticulturalist).
Like you say it is all over the place. This winter has been so depressing. Probably had 10 or so completely dry days since mid October. Sunny days even less I think. Last winter was colder but much better in terms of high pressure and sunshine hours. At our renovation we had half a metre of snow this time last year.
On days like today, of which we must have had about 70 or so since mid October(permagloom, no wind, constant fine drizzle to middling rain, about 5 degrees) it feels like we’ll never see a sunny warm day again!
Interesting what you say about it being so changeable. I have read historic data and articles on the weather here in Correze and it used to be more settled with colder and snowier winters. I guess that’s the rapidly changing climate.
I motorcycled through the Millevaches in October 2017. It was lovely to see all the long green grass in the fields, and every cow in France 
. Surrounded by green trees, definitely a dampness in the air.
But from your original thread posted ages ago (ISTR commentary about military flights there too?), I thought this was what you chose? I don’t think you’ve made a bad decision climate-wise looking towards the future.
What does your partner think?
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I did the same and spent I don’t know how much on sledges which weren’t used until last year when we had proper snow for the first time in 8 years. Still haven’t used my pretty pink show sovel though 
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llActually it’s very pleasant throughout the year, though the winter’s been wetter than usual. We’re in the Aveyron part of the Lot Valley, which is further north and really great in summer (very popular with French tourists). This year I was wearing shorts from mid April to early November
It might get above C40° if there’s an August canicule, but one can still walk in the surrounding forests and the house remains cool, so it works for us.
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In the UK we lived in wettish and green places (Snowdonia; Cambrian Mountains; Cairngorms) so when we came to France in 2014, Charente was a bit of a mistep. Sold up there in 2016 after a rapid renovation project. We should have gravitated originally to a mountainous area of France such as the Pyrenees, Auvergne, Jura, even the Vosges. (Alps way too expensive).
In 2017 we came over exploring east of Limoges, so Creuse, Correze, eastern parts of the Haute Vienne. Liked the hilly green landscape and granite mountains,
So many Brits gravitate (with good reason) to the south west departments of France (Dordogne, Charente, Vienne, Lot, Tarn etc), I doubt that many go to mountainous areas. eastern France doesn’t seem that popular with Brits either. We love Clermont and that surrounding area, but it’s sparsely populated with Brits, compared to say Dordogne or even here.
Anyway we did choose this area (Plateau Millevaches) based on research and because we experienced droughts and extreme heat in 2019, 2020 in Limousin we thought buying high up in an area with higher than average rainfall would be a good bet. Cooler summers, regular rain. I guess it’s just gone extreme in the last 12 months, so much rain…like 2021mm in 12 months. Very cool weather overall with a few warmer periods. So unlike (2019 and 2020).
My wife is miffed off with this winter too. Most people we speak to here are to be fair. How’s it been in the Lot? I bet you have had much more sunshine than us? We had snow on the ground this weekend at our renovation (hard frozen snow, -10 at night), but when the sun came out it felt pleasant.
I don’t think it’s good for humans to be in a place where there is so little sunshine for so long in winter. As I already said about 8 to 12 blue sky sunny days since 18th October 2023 (that’s when the monsoon started!!) Looking ahead, if every winter ended up like this one then we would definitely leave this area, beautiful as it is. We have probably chosen quite an extreme area climate wise. Weird thing is that there are loads of Brits around here, must be as mad as us!!
Sounds lovely Mark.
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Northern Lot (half an hour Sth of Brive) has been exceptionally wet the past 4 or so winters particularly this one. But would I want to be in Central or Southern Lot? Absolutely not. At least 8 months of the year, historically up to 9 or 10 months, are really pleasant.
I’d consider going further East such as Aveyron near DrMarkH, or possibly Southern Cantal in that direction. But not the harsh extremes of Clermont F, and no further North unless West as well.
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Clermont is actually one of the drier cities in France. Only around 750mm in an average year!
We’ve a lot of friends in the southern part of the Cantal, who like its gently rolling landscapes, but you don’t have to go very far north in the Cantal before you’re just a bit higher up and guaranteed snow! We know three couples at Junhac, which is only just over 500m, and two of the three opt to spend the winter in the Netherlands.
By contrast, we’ll be walking to the junction of the Aveyron, Lot and Cantal tomorrow morning starting from our place down on the banks of the Lot and walking up through the forest to about 400m and the forecast is for C10-12° cloudy and dry. Fine!
Love the great variety of the landscapes that surround us.
Really! Friends of ours go south - Spain for the winter.
These friends are Dutch and their second homes here are larger than our primary residence. But we also have other local Dutch friends who have winter places in Alicante or the Algarve. We usually pop down to Spain in Jan or Feb, but only for a week or so. And it’s as much for the food as the climate.
Most of my Dutch pals seem to relish bad/foul/wet/cold/whatever weather…
deliberately choosing to spend winter months in freezing temps instead of seeking warmth and comfort… many of them find our summers are toooo hot 
They know I think they’re crazy… 
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I would easily rank the winter of 2023-24 as the worst since we have lived in France since late 2014. Closely followed by winter 2017-18. Such limited winter sunshine here in North Correze. Endless grey, drizzly, windless, wet and cool days (2 to 5 degrees) since Mid October.
980mm or rain in 10 weeks from October 18th to the end of 2023 to add to the 2021mm (yes really!!) total for last year!!
We had one cold spell with a dusting of snow (early to mid January) and a few bright days late in January/early Feb, but other than that relentlessly grey, damp, wet and gloomy.
Either the climate here is turning to s***e like nearly everywhere else or it’s bad year due to El Nino. But I’d like to think we can go for at least the next half a decade without facing another winter like the one we are now coming out of. Let’s just hope we have a sunny and warm spring to make up for it…but I’m not holding my breath. Move to France they said, for the better climate…hmmm?? I think it’s really difficult finding a balance between not stupidly hot (40 degrees plus) in the summer and not monsoon like and constantly gloomy in the winter.
Entirely agree. This winter has been s*&£.
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Where are you Jane? Which department? I know that the north west of France has been deluged like the UK, but probably a bit milder than here in the Massif Central, which has definitely not been cold, just cool and wet (the worst combination!)