2023-08-20 22:45:09
And to think that the thermometer must still continue to climb in the coming days. While Météo France has placed 50 departments on heat wave orange vigilance for Monday, a certain number of them have observed heat records as of this Sunday. For some, these are even absolute records (not just for the month of August).
The night from Sunday to Monday and the next ones are already shaping up to be complicated for the more than 23 million French people affected by this late heat wave. Météo France predicts that the thermometer will not drop below 29°C in Perpignan or 28°C in Nice from Sunday to Monday.
On August 20, 42° were reached in Grospierres in Ardèche
in Salindres and La Rouviere in the Gard, in Vinsobres in the Drôme where it is an absolute record for all months combined. Monthly record in Nîmes with 40.4° and for Vigan with 41.2°. In Uzes and Apt more than 41° too.— Evelyne Dhéliat (@EvelyneDheliat) August 20, 2023
“It was 41°C in Nîmes this Sunday. Not only had we never measured a temperature above 40°C after an August 15th at this station (opened in 1922), but we are potentially moving towards 4 to 5 days above 40°C from here Thursday 24. This should be the case Ditto for other stations in the lower Rhone Valley (Orange, Carpentras, Avignon)”, writes on X, formerly Twitter, the forecaster of Météo France, Étienne Kapikian.
Towards red vigilance for the departments of the Rhône Valley?
Several dozen weather stations have also noted, this Sunday, monthly temperature records. But what is more impressive are the stations that have recorded absolute records. This is the case in Vinsobres with 42.1 ° C or 41.7 ° C in Puy-de-Saint-Martin, in Drôme. In the Hautes-Alpes, 39.8°C was measured in Rosans. 38.1°C for Castanet-le-Haut, in Hérault or 37.6°C in Mende, in Lozère. Aveyron or Tarn have also broken absolute records.
????️ Among the main network:
• Absolute heat record in Mende: 37.7°C (beginning of measurements in 1985)
• Monthly record in Nîmes: 40.4°C (1964)
Multitude of records in the secondary network.
More generally, 40°C is often exceeded in the lower Rhône valley. #heat wave pic.twitter.com/cELodAX4y1
— Nicolas Berrod (@nicolasberrod) August 20, 2023
Some of these departments could also see Météo France decide to place them on red alert in the face of stinging heat during the day and heavy heat at night. In the Drôme, which concerns the authorities the most, with the Rhône valley, where the temperature was 9 to 10 degrees above average, the normals for the season were largely exceeded almost everywhere.
“The heat wave peak is expected between Tuesday and Wednesday”, underlines Météo France in its afternoon bulletin which specifies that “absolute records risk being beaten, in particular Tuesday towards the Rhone valley, with 40 to 42 degrees planned”. Sources of hope for many, Météo France forecasts expect a sharp drop in temperatures by the end of the week.
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