It’s heating up in Occitania. Nearly 32 degrees were recorded on Tuesday at the Toulouse-Blagnac weather station. Temperatures continue to rise in the region. A heat wave that will stay in place for several more days. Records could even be broken for a month of May.
33, 34 or 35 degrees
For Jean-Michel Vayssettes, forecaster at Météo France, “this heat wave will continue for several more days. This Wednesday will be the hottest day of the week with temperatures that will, almost everywhere around Toulouse, reach 33 degrees. Thursday, we will be entitled to a small drop in temperatures, but we will still remain at very high values compared to seasonal norms. And for the day on Friday, values will start to rise again with probably 33 or 34 degrees in Albi, Toulouse and many other towns and villages. Cahors will perhaps flirt with 35 degrees.”
Very high values compared to seasonal norms
Jean-Michel Vayssettes explains the causes of this sudden heat: _”_The Azores anticyclone has come to position itself very early : heat and hot air rise from the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb. And since this hot air has a trajectory that passes over continents that are already hot, it does not cool down: when it reaches us, it is all the hotter. Usually, this anticyclone arrives more at home in June.
Unheard of since 1992
The forecaster evokes temperatures “exceptional” for a month of May: “To find an episode with so many successive hot days, you have to go back 30 years. This is unheard of since 1992. If we take an average of the temperatures over five to six days, we should in theory be around 21 degrees. But there, we will most certainly be above 30. It is 9 to 10 degrees more than the values that we should observe this season.
You have to go back to 1992, 30 years ago, to find something comparable
Temperature records soon to be broken?
Gaétan Heymes, another Météo France forecaster, estimates that unprecedented temperatures could be reached in France in this month of May:
A drop in temperatures expected next Tuesday
This weekend, the temperatures will drop slightly, but it will still be nice and warm. It will be necessary to wait until next Tuesday to find more breathable values, around 25 degrees, in the Toulouse conurbation.