Since 2000, heat waves have been five times more frequent in France than before 1989 and they will be twice as numerous within 30 years.
Already heat records broken locally. A heat wave is currently hitting the western Mediterranean basin. A heat dome is over Italy and Météo France expects to record a heat peak “in the south of the country” with “a thermometer that will often read between 34 and 38 degrees“.
>> MAPS. Which are the fifty cities where it is the hottest in summer in France?
According to the institute, the 40°C mark was thus crossed in Serralongue, in the Pyrénées-Orientales, beating the record of 37°C reached on August 22, 2012. In Verdun, in Ariège, some 40.6°C were recorded , at an altitude of 550 m.
In its last bulletin, seven French departments were still on orange alert for a heat wave (Haute-Corse, Corse-du-Sud, Var, Alpes-Maritimes, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Vaucluse and Pyrénées-Orientales).
>> Heat wave in France: “It is really necessary to adapt to these conditions”, warns a weather specialist
However, nothing exceptional assure the forecasters. The meteorological organization evokes a “non-exceptional heat wave, but the persistence of which requires particular vigilance“.
Last year, in 2022, France was, at this stage of the summer, in its second national heat wave and many cities then saw old temperature records being erased from the shelves.
franceinfo invites you to discover the heat records in France, recorded by Météo France in summer in its main measuring stations.
The national record for the highest temperature in mainland France, all months combined, is 46.0°C: the temperature was reached in Vérargues, in Hérault, on June 28, 2019.
Since 2000, heat waves have been five times more frequent in France than before 1989 and they will be twice as numerous within 30 years. The summer of 2023 is marked, in France as in the rest of the world, by abnormally high temperatures, well above seasonal norms, one of the most direct signs of climate change, according to scientists. Compared to its Mediterranean neighbors, France remains relatively spared by this heat wave: Italy, Spain or Greece have already been suffocating for several days with temperature records broken locally.
Last summer, heat waves, and in particular a heat wave at the same time in July, caused more than 60,000 deaths in Europe, according to a study by the French National Institute of Health (Inserm) and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) published July 10 in Nature Medicine.