The extreme heat wave that has been affecting southwestern Europe for several days is expected to reach its peak today in Spain, where the thermometer exceeded 45 degrees Celsius yesterday Wednesday, and during the weekend in France. “Today is expected to be the hottest day of this heatwave“, announced the Spanish Meteorological Service (AEMET).
Almost all of Spain was put on alert yesterday, with the exception of the Canary Islands archipelago. Andalusia, Extremadura and Galicia have been put on red alert.
The highest temperature was recorded at 17:30 (local time, 18:30 Greek time) in Almonte, Andalusia, while several cities in southern Spain, including Seville, Córdoba and Badajoz, saw the mercury exceed 44 degrees Celsius.
At the end of the week the temperature will drop in the south and west of Spain, while the situation will remain difficult in the north-west of the country as the heat wave moves north, France and then Britain.
The peak of the heat wave in France is expected on Sunday and Monday, according to yesterday’s forecast of the French meteorological service, as reported by Agence France-Presse and relayed by the Athens News Agency.
“France is facing a heatwave that will intensify between Sunday and Tuesday,” the agency noted. “Temperatures will gradually drop from the west from Tuesday, Wednesday.”
Heat and flames
The areas most affected will be the South West and the Rhône Valley.
Due to the heat many fires are raging in southern Spain.
In Portugal, a man died on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday in the province of Aveiro (north). According to the newspaper Correio da Manha, this is a woman of around 50 years old.
The center of the country, still burning today, remains the hardest hit by the fires, which flared up on Tuesday afternoon due to heat and strong winds.
“We live in an area of ​​the world where climate change will systematically worsen conditions in the coming years,” Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa stressed on Tuesday.
Claire Noulis, spokeswoman for the World Meteorological Organization, warned that the situation is critical because of “very dry ground” and the impact of temperatures on the glaciers in the Alps: “It is a very bad season for the glaciers,” she underlined, a little more since a week after the collapse of a large volume of the Marmolanda glacier in Italy, which caused the death of eleven people.
In France, two fires fueled by “dry vegetation” have burned 27,000 hectares in the Bordeaux region since Tuesday afternoon.
The intensity of the second heat wave to hit the country in a month could be “on par” with the deadly heat wave of 2003 (which killed almost 19,500 people in France), estimated Mathieu Sorel, a climatologist with the French meteorological service. That heat had lasted two weeks.
The extreme temperatures are then expected to spread to other countries in western and central Europe.
In Britain, the Met Office has issued an orange alert for an “extreme heat” wave from Sunday, with temperatures likely to exceed 35 degrees Celsius.
Source: News Beast
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