The hot weather of recent days will continue to hit France this Thursday, August 24. Last Tuesday, Météo France announced that four departments in the south of the country had been placed on heatwave red vigilance, the highest level of the national heatwave plan.
This weather event will continue this Thursday over a large part of southern France, according to the official service attached to the Ministry of Ecological Transition. An unusual situation for the end of summer, making the air difficult to breathe in cities and increasing the risks for the most fragile.
Two-thirds of the south are still affected
If almost all of France is affected by high temperatures, the heatwave episode mainly affects the southern half of France. In his weather report published at 6 a.m. this morningMétéo-France indicates that 17 departments are experiencing “dangerous phenomena of exceptional intensity”.
Those classified as “heat wave red vigilance” are: Ain, Ardèche, Aveyron, Drôme, Gard, Gers, Haute-Garonne, Haute-Loire, Isère, Loire, Lot , Lot-et-Garonne, Lozère, Rhône, Tarn, Tarn-et-Garonne and Vaucluse.
Similarly, 39 others are still colored orange (“be very vigilant”) on the Météo-France map. Hérault and Aude went back down to orange vigilance this Thursday, August 24. Further north, 11 departments are classified in yellow (“be careful”), on a line from Loire-Atlantique to the Vosges. Only Brittany, Normandy, Hauts-de-France, Ile-de-France and part of the Grand Est appear in green.
The official meteorological service also specifies the temperatures already “everywhere very high” this Thursday morning: “between 20 and 25 ° C, even 25 to 30 ° C in places”, notes Météo France. From 5 o’clock this morning, we note “29 ° C in Toulouse” or “30 ° C in Castres-Mazamet”. For the rest of the day, maximum temperatures should be around 40 degrees inland over the southern half of the country, especially in the Rhône Valley where the heat wave is the most stifling.
Heat records expected again
The public establishment also insists on the durability and intensity of this heat wave, while emphasizing its “remarkable or even exceptional” character in the Rhône valley, on “the south of the Massif central, in Occitania or as far as east of Aquitaine”, quotes AFP.
The beginning of the week was indeed marked by heat records. As of Tuesday, the country experienced its hottest day ever measured after an August 15: the national thermal indicator, that is to say the daily average of the average air temperature measured by thirty different weather stations, reached 26.9°C.
Similarly, many maximum temperature records were broken on Wednesday, notes Météo France. The Toulouse thermometer, for example, posted 42.4°C, greatly exceeding the previous record of 40.7°C. The organization also recorded records of 42.3°C in Auch (against 40.9°C) and 42.1°C in Narbonne (against 39.8°C).
A true marker of global warming according to scientists, this umpteenth wave of summer heat could above all have dramatic consequences. On Wednesday, the Ministry of Health launched a “call for the greatest vigilance” to caregivers, with “very particular attention (to) the most fragile patients”. If the authorities do not note a significant impact in hospitals for the moment, the effects could only be observed in the days to come, warns the ministry.