Greece is “probably” experiencing the longest heat wave in its history and some 30,000 people have been sheltered for the night until Sunday on the tourist island of Rhodes where firefighters have been fighting a forest fire for five days.
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Temperatures expected throughout the weekend are expected to exceed 44°C in Greece, not the only one hit by record heat also hitting the southern United States.
“We are likely to experience a 16-17 day heat wave, which has never happened before in our country,” Kostas Lagouvardos, the research director at the Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development at the National Observatory in Athens, told ERT television.
In Greece, all archaeological sites will continue to keep their doors closed during the hottest hours. Tourists will only be allowed to enter the famous Acropolis in Athens until 11:30 a.m. on Sunday.
“We need absolute vigilance (…), because the difficult times are not over,” warned Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
“We are facing a new heat wave” and “a possible strengthening of the winds” which have already been fanning several fires around the capital since Monday, he added.
In 24 hours, 46 new fires broke out in the country, according to firefighters.
On the tourist island of Rhodes, where a forest fire remains out of control in the Laermon and Lardos sector, more than 20 boats took part in an evacuation operation of more than 1,500 people on Saturday.
According to local authorities, some 30,000 people were able to leave the threatened areas by any means. There are tourists there, but also residents who have taken refuge in gymnasiums, schools and hotel conference centers on the island to spend the night there.
On the surface of the sea, the mercury was 2 to 3 ° C above normal, the meteorological services announced on Saturday. Temperatures of up to 45°C are expected for Sunday in the region of Thessaly (center).
“I am used to high temperatures. We have them every summer, but what is difficult this year is that the heat waves follow one another”, recognized Christos Boyiatzis, who shines the shoes of businessmen in the chic Kolonaki district.
Progress in the United States
In the United States, about 80 million people will experience temperatures of 41 ° C and more this weekend, alerted the American weather services (NWS).
They could rise to more than 46 ° C in Phoenix, Arizona (southwest), which is currently experiencing its longest heat wave on record: Friday, the mercury exceeded 43 ° C for the 22nd day in a row.
500 km away, in California, Death Valley and its highest temperatures on the planet attract tourists, the latter wanting to take their picture alongside a screen displaying ever more extreme temperatures.
Some are waiting for the absolute record on Earth – 56.6°C recorded there in 1913 – disputed by some experts, to be beaten.
A 71-year-old man died there earlier this week and Death Valley National Park rangers suspect ‘heat played a part’ in his death, which would make it the second of the year under these circumstances.
“Heat-related emergency calls have reached an all-time high,” David Hondula, director of the department responsible for heat issues in Phoenix, Arizona, told CNN.
For the rest of July, the heat wave should move towards the center of the United States, on the side of the Rockies and the Great Plains of the Midwest, according to the American Agency for Oceanic and Atmospheric Observation (NOAA).
In Canada, on the other hand, torrential rains fell on the province of Nova Scotia (east), transforming the roads into torrents and causing power cuts.
“Some regions have already received more than 150 mm of rain”, indicate the meteorological services, specifying that additional precipitation “of a tropical nature”, of at least 40 to 100 mm, was expected.
July is on track to break the record for the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, not only for the first time measurements were taken, but also for “hundreds, if not thousands of years,” NASA chief climatologist Gavin Schmidt told reporters.
This is not just due to El Niño, the cyclic weather phenomenon that originates in the Pacific Ocean and causes global temperatures to rise, he said.
For this specialist, the extreme temperatures will persist, because “we continue to emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere”.
Compared to the pre-industrial era, the world is experiencing a warming close to 1.2°C as a result of human activity, mainly the use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas).