A historic heatwave is slamming France: on Wednesday, national temperature averages reached an all-time high of 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) across day and night, according to Météo-France, the country’s national weather service—breaking the previous all-day temperature record set in July 2019 at 29.4 degrees C (84.9 degrees F).
The national average temperature collates readings from 30 stations across the country: Paris, for example, reached 40.3 degrees C (104.5 degrees F), while Bordeaux hit 41.8 degrees C (107.2 F) on Wednesday; Cazaux, in southern France, was a scorching 43.6 degrees C (110.5). Earlier in the week, about 20 percent of the country saw temperatures above 40 degrees C (104 degrees F), the weather agency said.
The relentless heat has already contributed to dozens of deaths in France in the last week, including 40 swimmers who died by drowning, prime minister Sébastien Lecornu said on Tuesday. Three elderly people and two children who overheated in a car have also died, Reuters reported on Monday.
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The extreme temperatures are due to a “heat dome”—a mass of heat-trapping, high-pressure air—sitting over Western Europe. The continent witnessed a similar phenomenon in May, which was also a historically hot month.
While it is hard to link a single weather event solely to climate change, rising global temperatures have made heatwaves more frequent and more extreme, research shows. Since 1947, France has seen 52 heatwaves, with an estimated 60 percent of those events in the years since 2000, according to Météo-France. Last month’s heat wave was intensified by climate change pushing up temperatures in Western Europe about 2.5 degrees C (4.5 degrees F) above normal, partially fueling the heat dome, researchers determined.
Other places across Western Europe have reported severe highs on Wednesday too. Some areas in the UK saw temperatures rise as high as 36.0 degrees C (96.8 degrees F), and parts of Spain surpassed 38 degrees C (100 degrees F). On Monday, the UK’s Met Office issued a “red” extreme heat warning, reportedly only the second time the agency has done so in the last five years.
This is a breaking news story and may be updated.