Monday was the hottest day on record in France after August 15, with the national thermal index reaching 26.63 degrees, the French meteorological agency told AFP on Tuesday, amid an exceptionally late heatwave for the season.
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The previous end-summer thermal record dates back to 2012, when the national thermal index (the average daily air temperature recorded at 30 meteorological stations representing the territory) reached 26.44 °C on 19 August.
Meteo France said that the value reached on Monday, although the peak temperature has not yet been exceeded, is 5.8 degrees Celsius higher than the normal seasonal average (during the period 1991-2020).
This temperature remains far from the absolute record of the National Thermal Index, which was set at 29.4 degrees Celsius on July 25, 2019. But the highest average temperatures are generally measured at the end of July and the beginning of August.
France has been experiencing one of its latest heat waves since August 17, and temperatures are expected to remain very high in the greater southern hemisphere until Thursday.
In France, heat spells occurring after August 15 are rare: only six have occurred since 1947, all in the 21st century (2001, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2016 and 2017), confirming climate scientists’ predictions about the effects of change. Caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
Monday was particularly stifling. At dawn, the thermometer already showed 30 degrees in Perpignan.
In the afternoon, the temperature reached 35 degrees in Bordeaux and Marseille, and 37 degrees in Lyon, Perpignan and Toulouse, according to Météo-France, with the maximum reaching 42.4 degrees in Vinsuper (Drome), an absolute record for this region.
On Tuesday at 5:00 am, we recorded 29 degrees Celsius in Nice, 26 degrees Celsius in Marseille, 25 degrees Celsius in Toulouse, 24 degrees Celsius in Cognac, and 23 degrees Celsius in Lyon or Clermont-Ferrand, according to the French Meteorological Agency.
At noon Tuesday, four departments will enter a red heatwave alert, an extremely rare threshold that was crossed for the first time this year, while 49 others will enter an orange alert.
Local records could still be broken, with temperatures expected to reach 40 to 42 degrees in Drome and Ardèche.
The highest temperature ever recorded in France was 46 degrees in Vérargues, in Hérault, on June 28, 2019.
