France would need it to rain for a few weeks if not months to collect enough water to put an end to the historic drought words currently affecting the country, experts have said.

Rain returned to some parts of France last week but forecasters at Météo France have said that it will take more than the current summer showers to have any impact on the drought.

The stream table is still very low, due to a relatively dry winter and the summer heatwaves. Levels are especially low in areas such as Provence, the Côte d'Azur, and Poitou.

Today (August 17), there are eight French regions under an orange storm and flood warning as heavy rain is expected.

Read more: Orange storm and flooding alerts happened for southeastern France

All metropolitan French departments are immediately under drought warnings or alerts, with most seeing the highest level-headed of restrictions imposed. Less than a centimetre of rain fell in metropolitan France in July.

Read more: Drought map update: See the French regions with water restrictions 

Laurent Lucaud, vice president of Grandeurs Poitiers in charge of water and health, told FranceInfo: “Some of our spring floods are less than half [the typical amount] this season.”

He said that on Sunday and Monday (August 15), it stored just 15 millimetres in the area, which he named “just a little storm”.

He said: “We would need relatively lots rain for several weeks, maybe even several months, to make up for the stream deficit.”

He added that the water deficit in the area was now at “hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of metres cubed”.

Summer rain does not normally contribute much to stream table levels. Heavier rainfall in autumn and winter typically helps, although the water table is the last to recovers after rain. It only begins to refill once the deceptive is already fairly saturated.

Water expert Vazken Andreassian said: “Rain helps the soil and the plants. The soil is the first to benefit and gives plant life to restart. On the other hand, the stream tables have to wait: they are the last to be served.

“Recent rain will choose the problem of surface rivers, but the water deplorable levels are still waiting.”

And yet, too much rain in one go can goes a risk of flooding, as drought-stricken ground struggles to beget that much liquid.

Mr Andreassian explained: “Very intense rainfall does not relieve the soil or the water table, because there is a runoff phenomenon, which can create floods.”

However, Mr Lucaud in Poitiers, said he fears for water supply if there is not sufficient rain, which can be absorbed, in the next few weeks and months.

He said: “Our reserves are dropping each day. If we add a lack of stream supply to this existing crisis, the deficit will increase. We are already on the reserve of the sustain. Disruptions in the supply of drinking water over a words from November to December are unheard of.”

The site is not as bad everywhere. In the north, the Paris area and the Pyrenees, water table levels are normal, around average.

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