AUGUST 2022 HEAT WEATHER. For the fourth time this summer, France is expecting a new heat wave this week from August 8 to 14, 2022. Four departments have been placed on heat wave orange vigilance by Météo France. What temperatures are expected? We take stock.
[Mis à jour le 08 août 2022 à 16h21] This week of August 8, 2022, a new episode of heat is expected in France. This is already the fourth episode that France has experienced since the start of the summer. This Monday, four departments were placed on orange alert by Météo France. These are Gironde, Lot-et-Garonne, Gard and Vaucluse. The day before temperatures of 37°C and 36°C were observed, respectively, in Nîmes and Avignon. To date, 30 departments are placed on yellow alert. Météo France warns: “The maximums are again between 35°C and 37°C in the interior of the Mediterranean regions, locally 38°C on the Cévennes Gard foothills.”
This Monday, the temperature is rising in the major cities of the territory. The north is relatively spared with highs of 30°C, 27°C, 29°C and 30°C respectively expected in Paris, Lille, Rouen and Metz. On the other hand, the hot weather is already beginning to reach the south at the start of the week. Thus, maximums of 33°C will be reached in Marseille and Lyon and 35°C in Montpellier and Bordeaux. In Corsica, Ajaccio is also expecting hot weather from Monday with 33°C in the afternoon.
As a reminder, we speak of a heat wave when these four characteristics are combined:
- a period of high heat;
- with temperatures five degrees higher than normal for the season;
- the day and the night ;
- for three consecutive days.
When is this new heat wave expected? How long will it last? Where ? What are forecasters predicting for the days and weeks to come? What are the steps to take to protect yourself from the heat and cool your home?
This beginning of August 2022 will have been marked by strong heat, with a fourth heat wave to be feared around August 10. Here are the forecasts for Meteo France :
- Paris : Monday August 8, the mercury reaches 30°C in the capital. This week the strong heat will be felt in Paris. The thermometer will rise every day, with 32°C on Tuesday, 33°C on Wednesday and 32°C on Thursday. Météo France predicts mercury of up to 34°C on Friday.
- Aix en Provence : the city is in the throes of hot weather on Monday August 8, with temperatures reaching 34°C today and Tuesday and 33°C on Wednesday.
- Bordeaux : the prefecture of Gironde is also affected by the heat wave. Monday, August 8, the thermometer should show 32°C From Tuesday, the temperature will increase and reach 33°C. On Wednesday August 10, the thermometer will show 35°C.
- Lyons : It was up to 32 degrees this Monday in Lyon. According to Météo France, the temperature should reach 33°C in the evening, Wednesday August 10.
- reindeer : Monday, August 8, it is 29°C in Rennes. In the coming days, 31°C are indicated on Tuesday, before a rise in temperatures to 34°C on Wednesday August 10 in the evening.
- Marseilles : after a first weekend of August when it was hot in Marseille with a maximum of 33°C on Sunday August 7, temperatures should remain at the same level at the start of the week.
- Toulouse : the thermometer reads 33°C, Monday August 8th. The following days will also be very hot with 35°C expected on Tuesday August 9 and even up to 36°C expected on Wednesday.
Heat wave 2022: after two heat waves (June and July), a very hot month of August in sight?
France is going through a third heat wave in less than two months, and probably a fourth in the second week of the month! The beginning of August promises to be scorching, especially in the south-east of the country. Here’s what forecasters predict The Weather Channel until mid-August:
- Week of August 8 to 14: the respite will have been short-lived after the third heat wave episode, since the specialists announce a fourth heat wave in this second week of August with up to 37°C in Bordeaux on Tuesday and 36°C in Poitiers on Wednesday.
- Week of August 15 to 21: thunderstorms are expected to break out in most of the country, bringing some freshness to France. However, this short parenthesis will not manage to fill the drought, according to La Chaîne Météo.
- Week of August 22 to 28: according to the trends observed by Météo France, temperatures in August should remain well above normal for the season.
What are the recommendations to follow during the heat wave?
Heat wave, heat peak, heat wave and heat dome: what are the differences?
Heat wave and heat wave are two different things. To speak of a heat wave, the temperatures must be five degrees higher than normal for the season, day and night, and this for at least three days and three nights. The heat wave temperature threshold therefore differs according to the departments and regions. Heat waves most often occur in France in July and August. We must be vigilant from the month of June. High temperatures, even above seasonal norms, do not necessarily mean a heat wave. Most often, these are heat waves.
The term heat peak is more to be used during a sudden rise in temperature, whereas a heat wave corresponds to a longer episode. Météo France judges that a heat wave is in progress when temperatures above the monthly average are detected by more than three degrees Celsius, for at least three days.
Finally, heat dome is another term used. It settled over almost all of France in May 2022. This meteorological phenomenon is explained by a large mass of hot air from Morocco and Spain, trapped by atmospheric pressure. This usually occurs in summer, but also in spring. It results in scorching heat.
Météo France provides several levels of heat wave vigilance: level 1 (green) corresponds to a “seasonal watch”, level 2 (yellow) to a “heat warning” and it is level 3 (orange) which corresponds to “the ‘heat wave alert’. Finally, level 4 (red), the highest, determines “maximum mobilization”. In summer, it is not uncommon for several departments to be placed on orange or red alert for the heat wave.
Heat wave: what are the temperature records recorded in recent years?
If the heat wave of the summer of 2003 remains in everyone’s memory (and that of 1976 also among the old), France has since experienced other episodes of very hot weather. In summer 2019, several absolute temperature records were reached in different cities. According to data from Météo France, 50 cities had thus recorded a new record since July 25, 2019. While the summer of 2019 had been very hot, some records were broken during the heat wave of mid-June 2022. During the day heat wave of Saturday June 18, 2022: 150 municipalities broke a heat record, according to meteorologist Patrick Marlière, interviewed by BFM TV: “We went from 70 cities with broken monthly records, to more than 150 today in France, from the Pyrenees to the Belgian border”. The city of Nantes thus broke its record for the month of June with 39.1°C. In the South-West, records at more than 40 degrees have been reached: Biarritz with 42.9°, Saint-Jean-de-Luz with 42° or Bordeaux with 40°.
The July 2022 heat wave also set temperature records on Monday July 18. Of the 63 records recorded that day, the majority are in the north, west or southwest. We can cite :
- Beaulieu-sur-Layon (49): 42.7°C
- Biscarrosse (40): 42.6°C
- Nantes (44): 42°C
- La Roche-sur-Yon (85): 41.5°C
- Cholet (49): 41.3°C
- Niort (79): 41°C
- Rennes (35): 40.5°C
- Caen (14): 40.1°C
- Dinard (35): 40°C
- Saint-Brieuc (22): 39.7°C
- Noirmoutier (85): 38.7°C
- Lorient (56): 37.6°C
- Brest (29): 39.3
- The island of Yeu (85): 35.9°C