"The 3rd heatwave episode of summer 2022, which started 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", warned Météo-France in a bulletin on Tuesday evening.
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 local peaks at 39 or 40°C".
In total, 16 departments are placed in heat wave orange vigilance (“Be very vigilant”), from Loire-Atlantique to Hautes-Pyrénées.
"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 to the northwest and to the north," said Christine Lac, head of duty for the forecast. at Météo-France, during a press briefing.
But this third heatwave episode should end on Sunday with a stormy deterioration throughout the country, forecasts Météo-France.
These storms should make it possible "to return next week to significantly lower temperatures which should be closer to seasonal normals", continued Christine Lac.
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“This heatwave episode has a lower intensity than those of last June and July, but a longer duration on the scale of the territory”, added Météo-France.
France has already experienced two heat waves, in June and July, when almost all of France was on heat wave alert.
Drought and fires
The heat wave led to a severe drought and caused the flow of rivers to drop in many regions, increasing the number of water restriction measures, worrying the agricultural world, in particular for the cultivation of corn, the production of which is already announced to be very affected. by climatic hazards.
93 departments in mainland France out of 96 are currently subject to water use restrictions to varying degrees.
Since Tuesday, 22 departments have been on "enhanced alert", which imposes sharp reductions in watering and withdrawals for agriculture, even bans on certain withdrawals, and 68 are "in crisis", where even water withdrawals for agriculture are prohibited.
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In more than a hundred small towns in France, the pipes are empty and must be supplied with drinking water by trucks.
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.
With already more than 50,000 hectares burned since the start of the year, France experienced a record number of burned areas in July, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), which has kept comparable statistics since 2006. .
Duration record
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.
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.
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But this is not a severity record, commented Jean-Michel Soubeyroux, climatologist at Météo-France, during the press briefing.
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.
© 2022 AFP