After the many absolute temperature records recorded on Saturday in France, the extreme and early heat wave which hits the country shifts towards the east on Sunday, where the mercury could reach 38 degrees.
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Also affected by an unusual heat wave at this time of year, Spain is struggling with a giant fire that firefighters were trying to control on Saturday.
In France, nearly three quarters of the population, or 45 million people, were concerned on Saturday by the red or orange levels of heat wave vigilance.
Sunday morning, Météo-France lifted its red alert on the 11 departments affected in the south-west, 50 departments remaining placed in orange vigilance in the center and east of the country.
Punctual thunderstorms were expected on the Atlantic coast, the beginnings of a deterioration expected for Sunday evening and which will allow the heat wave to “gradually decrease to no longer concern only the eastern flank of the country”, according to the meteorological service.
Saturday evening, a powerful and unexpected gust of wind on the “flowery coast” in Normandy, caused the death of a kite-surfer, projected against the window of a restaurant in Villers-sur-mer (north-west).
If the temperatures are cooling from the west, the heat wave persists on the other hand in the north-eastern regions, in particular in Alsace where Météo France forecasts temperatures up to 38 degrees, and locally more in Alsace.
On Saturday, the heat had increased in the southwest where “peaks of around 42°/43°C” were measured locally in southern Aquitaine, according to Météo France. “Absolute temperature records have been broken”, with in particular 42.9°C in Biarritz, or 2.3°C more than the previous record dating from 2003.
Many festive, sporting and cultural events have also been canceled.
Museums welcome visitors in search of freshness
In some cities, museums have welcomed visitors in search of freshness. Bordeaux (south-west), where the mercury indicated 40°C according to Météo-France, has also made them free.
In Paris, at the Liberation Museum, of General Leclerc and Jean Moulin, Sonia De Man, 70, a Belgian tourist who came with her daughter, confided that she had “chosen to favor a museum during the day” rather than going to Montmartre, as planned. They will also be able to take advantage of the opening of the parks and gardens of Paris all night long.
In the southeast, a fire caused by artillery fire at a major French army training camp burned around 600 hectares of vegetation but was close to being fixed.
The multiplication of heat waves in Europe is a direct consequence of global warming. Greenhouse gas emissions increase the strength, duration and rate of repetition of heat waves, scientists say.
The current wave arrived from the Maghreb via the Iberian Peninsula.
Fires in Spain
In Spain, firefighters continued Saturday, the last day of the heat wave, to fight against several fires across the country, one of which ravaged nearly 20,000 hectares of land, while temperatures peaked at 43 degrees.
The largest of these forest fires was still out of control on Saturday afternoon in the Sierra de la Culebra, a mountain range in the region of Castile and Leon (northwest), near the border with Portugal. In total, nearly 20,000 hectares burned there.
Eleven villages with several hundred people had to be evacuated in the face of the threat of the flames, which led to the closure of a national road and a high-speed train line between Madrid and the region of Galicia (north-west) .
Spanish firefighters also continued to fight several fires in Catalonia and Navarre.