A quarter of France was placed under vigilance for a heat wave on Thursday, with possible peaks locally around 40 degrees Celsius, temperatures already exceeded in Spain, which is also suffocating and has to deal with several fires.
France has been hit since Tuesday by an unprecedentedly early heat wave, arriving from the Maghreb via Spain, which first affected the south-west of the country before spreading.
Temperatures between 30 and 35 ° C were recorded on Wednesday over the entire southern half. Météo-France expects values of 34 to 38 ° C there on Thursday with possible peaks of up to 39-40 ° C in the shade locally.
And the weather will be scorching on Friday over much of the country, with the heat wave spreading to northern regions and intensifying further in the west and south. At the hottest of the afternoon, Météo-France forecasts 36 to 39°C in these regions, and locally there again peaks of 40 degrees.
In Toulouse (south), the thermometer did not drop below 20 ° C during the night from Wednesday to Thursday.
Jacqueline Bonnaud, 86, took advantage of the relative freshness of the early hours of the day in a shady park, before returning home to stay cool.
“I think it’s the most severe heatwave I’ve known,” she said. And “when it’s too hot, it’s better at home, or in the air-conditioned metro”.
Risks of dehydration
The situation of isolated elderly people is of concern: “we are even more vigilant than usual with the elderly”, testifies Sarah Jalabert, home nurse in the south of France. “It’s hard for them. Often, they are alone, physically impaired, losing their autonomy […] There is a risk of dehydration.
A free “Heatwave info service” number has been activated by the government.
Mohamed Soudani, caterer in a market in Toulouse, sweats behind his stove. “I have bottles in the fridge to refresh myself, water is life! “, he launches.
Cities have taken measures to relieve the population. In Bordeaux (south-west), foggers are installed in places known to be “ovens”. And as in Lyon (east), the municipality has extended the opening hours of the parks.
Attributed to global warming, heat waves are increasing around the world, especially in France where this episode is unprecedentedly early, after those of 2017 and 2005 which began on June 18.
This wave “has an aggravating effect on the dryness of the soil”, after a particularly dry spring and winter, and accentuates “the risk of forest fire”, explains to AFP Olivier Proust, forecaster at Météo-France.
This is the scenario facing neighboring Spain, which has been suffocating for six days, with temperatures in places exceeding 40°C.
Ominous Fire
The most worrying fire broke out near Baldomar, in the province of Lleida, in Catalonia (north-east), where the fire has already destroyed 500 hectares of forest, but has “the potential” to spread to 20,000 hectares, according to the regional government.
No one has yet been evacuated, but authorities have locked down some areas as a precaution.
In Lérida, temperatures of up to 41 ºC are expected on Thursday, according to the Spanish Meteorological Agency (Aemet), which also predicts temperatures above 40 ºC in Badajoz (southwest) and Zaragoza (northeast).
In Catalonia, two forest fires were active on Thursday morning, in Solsonés and Tierra Alta, while another fire broke out in the Sierra de la Culebra, in Zamora (center).
This heat wave, unusual at this stage of the year in Spain, has caused an explosion of temperatures across the country since last weekend, with peaks of up to 43°C. According to Aemet, it should last until Saturday.
Spain, which this year experienced its hottest May since the beginning of the century, according to the meteorological agency, has already gone through four episodes of extreme temperatures in the last ten months.
The multiplication of heat waves is a direct consequence of global warming, explain the scientists, the emissions of greenhouse gases increasing at the same time the intensity, the duration and the frequency of these phenomena.