France is set to remain under its ‘heat dome’ for the rest of the week, with Météo France placing 13 départements under orange heatwave alert on Wednesday. Temperatures are forecast to rise to 37C in Bordeaux, 36C in Rennes, 35C in Bourges, Lyon and Montélimar and 34C in Paris and Rouen. The départements under orange alert – the second highest – are; Charente, Charente-Maritime, Côtes-d’Armor, Gironde, Loire-Atlantique, Finistère, Ille-et-Vilaine, Maine-et-Loire, Manche, Mayenne, Morbihan, Vendée and Deux-Sèvres. A further 26 départements are on a yellow ‘be
aware’ warning for heat, while a pollution spike in the greater Paris region has led to decreased speed limits on the roads. At 7am on Wednesday temperatures of 27C were recorded on the island of Corsica, while Nice was 23.8C, La Rochelle 23.4C and La Roche-sur-Yon, on the west coast, 23.1C. High temperatures in Bordeaux also pose a headache for the area’s winemakers. Bernard Farges, of the national committee of winemakers, told BFM TV that the temperatures are “not insurmountable”, but will likely lead to
an earlier than usual grape harvest. Although these temperatures would not be unexpected in the height of summer, it is very unusual for the country to be so hot in May. On Tuesday 402 local weather stations recorded their hottest-ever May temperature. Many of the records that tumbled were in Brittany, which is usually spared the excesses of heatwaves – the Brittany town of Saint-Brieuc recorded a temperature of 31.9C, as did Gonneville in neighbouring Normandy. The country also broke the national record for the
highest May temperature – the national heat index, which measures the average temperature across the country, reached 24.8C according to provisional readings from Météo France, surpassing the previous high of 24.6C, set on Monday. Temperatures are expected to remain high for the rest of the week, with weather warnings in place for the west of the country on Thursday.
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