Unprecedented September Heatwave in France: 47 Departments on Yellow Vigilance

Tuesday, September 05, 2023 at 6:11 PM – Updated at 6:13 PM

By La Provence (with AFP)

France is going through a late and unprecedented heat episode in France, according to Météo France, which places 47 departments on heatwave yellow vigilance for Wednesday, after a day on Monday reported as the hottest ever recorded in September. In its last bulletin at 4:00 p.m., the public forecasting organization added four departments – Côte-d’Or, Jura, Saône-et-Loire and Seine-Maritime – in yellow vigilance (first alert threshold), specifying that an aggravation – placement in orange vigilance – “cannot be completely ruled out” in some territories.

While the meteorological summer ended at the end of August, these unusual temperatures affect a large western portion of the country, where the heat is expected to persist until Sunday. “Temperatures were very high on Monday afternoon, sometimes reaching a level of heat never seen in September”underlines Météo France.

Temperatures reached 37.0°C in Poitiers, 36.6°C in Niort, 36.8°C in Cognac, 35.1°C in Aix-en-Provence, 34.5°C in La Rochelle, 33 .9°C in Lyon-Saint-Exupéry, 31.5°C in Paris. The nights are also remarkably warm. Many temperature records have been broken, such as in Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne) between Sunday and Monday, with 24.4°C – the previous record dated from the heat wave of August 2003.

The mercury also rose in Vienne, where “The soils are completely dry. There is a foot of rapeseed every three or four square meters”, testifies to AFP Dominique Gaborieau, cereal producer in Genouillé. The 120 hectares he sowed at the beginning of August never came up, for lack of water. “We have never seen that” at this time of year, assures this farmer, forced to file a claim with his insurance.

Stuffy comeback

On the other hand, the Haut-Poitou melon union (2nd producing region of France) is delighted with this episode for “the quality of production and consumption of melons which should start to rise again”, even if the heat complicates the harvest. “We are forced to stop work in the middle of the afternoon, which reduces our activity”, notes Julien Godet, president of the union. In Pau, garbage collection has been rescheduled in the morning.

In Limousin, the start of the new school year has been particularly stifling for students and their teachers: “Many colleagues are making us raise temperatures to more than 30 degrees in their classrooms”, reports the Unsa Education union, calling on elected officials to adapt the school buildings to climate change. President Emmanuel Macron, traveling to a college in Pyrénées-Atlantiques, announced on Tuesday the release in 2024 of 500 million euros from the green fund for the energy renovation of schools. It aims to adapt more than 40,000 schools to global warming within 10 years.

This Wednesday, the highs remain warm and will reach “31 to 35 degrees from the South-West in the interior of Brittany and in the Center, up to 35 to 37 degrees in places“, indicates Météo-France. “On the shores of the Mediterranean and on the Channel coast, we expect between 23 and 30 degrees”he adds.

Maghreb hot air

This remarkable heat at the beginning of September is in line with the observations of climatologists, according to which human-caused climate change not only increases the severity of heat waves but also their precocity or their late onset. That of August mainly concerned a large southern half of the country, with a duration and intensity comparable to the historic heat wave of 2003 in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Occitanie.

“The records of 2003 or 1947 are generally erased in certain regions. These recent heat waves have reshaped the climatology of France”underlined this Monday Matthieu Sorel, climatologist at Météo-France. “We have hot air sucked in from the Maghreb which has gradually returned to the country, with high pressures which have set in and a blockage situation which will last all week”predicts Frédéric Nathan of Météo-France.

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