All of France will be on high temperature alert on Thursday
Paris, Aug 23 (EFE).- The entire French metropolitan territory will be under alert for extremely high temperatures, the state agency Meteo France announced Wednesday, warning of “an exceptionally severe heatwave”.
Of the 96 departments in metropolitan France (not including overseas departments) 19 will be on red alert, 62 on orange alert and the rest on yellow alert on Thursday. The Rhone valley and the southwest will be the most affected regions.
Meteo France warned that this heat episode is of “unprecedented duration and intensity for this time of the year” and calls for “particular vigilance, especially in sensitive or more exposed persons”.
The French meteorological agency forecast record-breaking temperatures in parts of the south of the country, where new records have already been reached since the beginning of the week.
The commune of Orange (Vaucluse, in the southeast) broke its record on Tuesday when temperatures reached 42.7 C and the small town of Serin (Herault, southeast) reached 44.5 C.
Tuesday was the hottest day for the second half of August since records began in 1947, with a national thermal indicator of 27.1 degrees, more than 6 degrees above average for the 1991-2020 reference period.
Tuesday was also the second consecutive day to record an all-time high in the second half of August, after the average temperature in France had risen to 26.63 degrees the day before. EFE
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