The heat wave never ends in France.

In total, 18 departments will be placed, Wednesday August 10, in heat wave orange vigilance (“Be very vigilant”), from Loire-Atlantique to Hautes-Pyrénées, as well as Gard or Vaucluse, before thunderstorms expected to leave from Sunday, Météo-France announced on Tuesday.

Maximum temperatures "will reach 34 to 37°C from Pays-de-Loire to Poitou-Charentes, and 36 to 38°C generally in the South-West with locally peaks at 39 or 40°C", warns Météo- France in a bulletin.

🌡️#VaguedeChaleur



What #temperatures for the next three days?



➡️https://t.co/nKFFz1VUlR pic.twitter.com/N0INvDVyx2

— Meteo-France (@meteofrance) August 9, 2022

“This heat wave will continue on Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the South and a large part of the West of the country, gradually spreading towards the North-West and towards the North”, specified Christine Lac, head of permanence for the forecast. at Météo-France, during a press briefing.

"This third heatwave episode should end on Sunday with a stormy deterioration whose activity could be marked, which would allow us to return next week to significantly lower temperatures which should be closer to seasonal normals", continued Christine Lac. .

A record of duration

If the current heatwave episode is not yet over, "with already 28 days today, the summer of 2022 will be record in the number of heat wave days, not in severity (...) We are far from the severity of 2003 at the national level", commented Jean-Michel Soubeyroux, climatologist at Météo-France.

Previous national records date back to 1983 with 23 days and 2003 with 22 days, he said.

France has already experienced two heat waves, in June and July, when almost all of France was on heat wave alert.

Since 1947, 45 heat waves have been recorded.

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.

Worldwide, July 2022 was also one of the hottest Julys ever recorded, along with July 2016 and July 2019, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a specialized agency of the United Nations, said on Tuesday. based in Geneva.

“And obviously, as we all know, a very prolonged and very intense heat wave affected parts of Europe,” WMO spokesperson Clare Nullis said at a press conference.

A severe lack of water

In addition to the heat wave, some regions of the world are experiencing severe drought, that is to say a lack of water.

According to the WMO, July was drier than average in much of Europe, most of North America, large parts of South America, Central Asia and Australia.

93 departments in mainland France out of 96 are currently subject to water use restrictions to varying degrees.

On August 9, 22 were on "enhanced alert", which imposes sharp reductions in watering and withdrawals for agriculture, or even bans on certain withdrawals, and 68 are "in crisis", where even water withdrawals for agriculture are prohibited.

July 2022 was the second driest month ever recorded in France, after March 1961, with a rainfall deficit of around 84% compared to normal for the period 1991-2020.

With AFP

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