The heat never ends. This Wednesday, the heat wave – in progress in the South-East for several days already – is regaining ground in the South-West with maximum temperatures expected up to 40 degrees locally.
“The 3rd heatwave episode of summer 2022, which began on July 31 at the national level, and has mainly affected the Mediterranean regions in recent days, extends from this mid-week on the South-West going up the along the Atlantic coast”, detailed Météo France in a bulletin on Tuesday evening. Maximum temperatures will reach “34 to 37°C from Pays de la Loire to Poitou-Charentes, and 36 to 38°C generally in the south-west with local peaks at 39 or 40°C”.
In total, 18 departments are placed in heat wave orange vigilance in the west of the country: Finistère, Morbihan, Loire-Atlantique, Vendée, Deux-Sèvres, Charente, Charente-Maritime, Dordogne, Gironde , Lot, Lot-et-Garonne, Tarn, Tarn-et-Garonne, Landes, Gers, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Hautes-Pyrénées and Haute-Garonne.
In these departments, temperatures can still gain 1 to 2 degrees in general by the end of the afternoon this Wednesday, with 34 to 38 degrees expected at the hottest of the day locally 39/40 degrees in the Landes . This rise will increase again during the day on Thursday with 33 to 36 degrees in Brittany, 36 to 40 degrees further south.
Thunderstorms expected on Sunday
The high temperatures will gradually reach the regions further north with 35 degrees expected from Friday in the Paris region, warns Météo France in its 4 p.m. bulletin this Wednesday. “Temperatures will remain high until Saturday before a stormy deterioration expected on Sunday by the south-west which will be accompanied by a sharp drop in temperatures. »
“This heatwave episode has a lower intensity than those of last June and July, but a longer duration on the scale of the territory”, indicated Météo France. France has already experienced two other heat waves this summer, which affected almost all of France.
These episodes led to severe drought and reduced river flows in many regions. This is enough to worry the agricultural world, especially for the cultivation of maize, the production of which already promises to be very affected by the vagaries of the weather. 93 departments in mainland France out of 96 are currently subject to water use restrictions to varying degrees.
Extreme drought
The drought also caused unprecedented fires in certain French regions such as in Brittany. Tuesday evening, a fire in Aveyron was still not under control despite 600 firefighters mobilized to stop it. In Gironde, the historic July fire has been reignited in two areas and 1,000 ha have already gone up in smoke.
With already more than 50,000 ha burned since the start of the year, France experienced a record number of burnt areas in July, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), which has kept comparable statistics since 2006.
July 2022 was also the second driest month ever recorded in the country, after March 1961, with a rainfall deficit of around 84% compared to normal for the period 1991-2020.
Since 1947, 45 heat waves have been recorded in France. But “over the last 35 years, they have been three times more numerous than over the previous 35 years”, according to Météo France, a sign of climate change. The summer of 2022 is a record for the number of days of heat waves, and should reach 34 days, compared to 23 days in the summer of 1983 or 22 days in the summer of 2003. But this is not a record for severity , commented Jean-Michel Soubeyroux, climatologist at Météo France, during the press briefing.