The occurrence of mistral winds in the Mediterranean shows a correlation with blocking activity over the eastern Atlantic. Apparently for this reason periods with a ''midwinter dip'' in the zonal available potential energy of the northern hemisphere are favored by mistral occurrence. There also is a tendency for a 22- to 26-day cycle to appear in pressure gradients at the 500- and 100-mb surfaces along the southern coast of France. Such pressure gradients, if they exceed a certain magnitude, are indicative of mistral episodes.