Summer 2023: Damaging hail events in France

Fig. 1 Maximum hail size (cm) alerts for the period 18-20 June 2023. Green rectangles show the European Severe Weather Database (ESWD) reports of hail larger than 2 cm.



For a second consecutive year, large hail events in France were more than the average of the last 30 years. They were also damaging, hitting densely populated and agricultural areas all over the country.

We highlight 3 days this summer, when very large hail hit hard infrastructure between 18-20 June, on 11 July and on 24 August 2023. Based on preliminary data from our clients, insurance cost is estimated in tens of millions of euros.
The following maps show with colored polygons the maximum hail size in centimeters for postal codes, as it was forecasted by the Data4Risk D4Weather alerting system. The green rectangles show the European Severe Weather Database (ESWD) reports of hail larger than 2 cm.

Fig. 2 Maximum hail size (cm) alerts for 11 July 2023. Green rectangles show the European Severe Weather Database (ESWD) reports of hail larger than 2 cm.
Fig. 3 Maximum hail size (cm) alerts for 24 August 2023. Green rectangles show the European Severe Weather Database (ESWD) reports of hail larger than 2 cm.

Overall statistics show that more than 90% of the large hail reports were covered by our alerting system. Note that in the areas without reports, it does not necessarily mean that hail did not occur.