With an average wind speed estimated to be twice that of the country, this city in France is officially the windiest.
In France, many places are renowned for their weather characteristics: whether for the rate of rain, that of sunshine or even that of snowfall. But do you know which city in France is the windiest? A study recently looked into the question, listing no less than 50 municipalities in total.
Indeed, the specialist in vacation property rental Gites.fr revealed the results of his research “based on average annual wind data from more than 400 French municipalities, taken from meteorological records by World Weather Online over a full year.” The ranking was thus established using the average wind speed expressed in km/h as the main indicator. Unsurprisingly, the regions most affected by this meteorological phenomenon are Brittany, Normandy and New Aquitaine.
In detail, the top 3 windiest cities in France are made up exclusively of Breton cities! Houat and Hoëdic, both located in the Morbihan department, are tied on the podium with the same annual average of 25.22 km/h wind. On the other hand, the windiest city in France according to this data is located in the Finistère department.
The gold medal for towns exposed to the wind all year round goes to one of the five most famous islands in Finistère: Ouessant. With an average wind speed of 27.26 km/h, this island located twenty kilometers from the continent is exposed to the prevailing winds all year round! This is due to its position in the Atlantic Ocean, but also to a lack of relief which allows all air currents to pass through.
This figure is all the more striking given that in mainland France, the average wind speed is generally between 12 and 14 km/h; a figure which may seem low but it is an annual average smoothed over the entire territory, including periods of dead calm. Ouessant is therefore double the national average! Please note that this data is studied every year. Ouessant could therefore well give up its first place within a few months.
