Blazing the record books
Europe’s triple digit heat wave threatens temperature marks
BERLIN — Europeans cooled off in public fountains Wednesday as a new heat wave spread across parts of the continent and is already breaking records.
Belgium registered its highest-ever temperature, while the Netherlands saw its hottest day in 75 years.
And the mercury is expected to rise even further. Paris and other parts of France could see temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday, as could Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland.
The heat is putting pressure on authorities to help protect the elderly and the sick. Air conditioning is not common at homes, offices, schools or hospitals in European cities.
The weather is also aggravating droughts because it hasn’t rained much in many parts of Europe this summer. The combination of heat, wind and possible lightning from thunderstorms also increases the risk of wildfires.
The second likely-to-berecord-breaking heat wave in two months in Europe includes some of the same ingredients of the first, including hot, dry air coming from northern Africa. That hot air is trapped between cold stormy systems in the Atlantic and eastern Europe and forms “a little heat dome,” said Ryan Maue, a private meteorologist in the U.S.
This heat wave is a relatively short event where the heat comes with a southerly wind — and dust — from Africa’s Sahara Desert, in contrast to the big European heat waves of 2003 and 2010, which lasted much longer and were sustained by a stationary high pressure system with little wind, experts say.
At the end of June, several countries reported record temperatures, and France hit its all-time heat record, 114.8 degrees, in the small southern town of Verargues.
Temperatures in France are likely to be 27 degrees higher than normal, with Paris likely to break its record of 104.7 degrees. Areas around Paris might hit 106 to 108, weather experts said.
René Pierron, 51, a street cleaner at Paris’ City Hall, said it is extremely difficult to work outdoors under such conditions.
“The buildings and roads here absorb the heat during the day and act like radiators — it’s unbearable,” he said while taking a break in the shade of an awning near the Avenue des Champs-élysées.
Several commuters on Paris’ Metro system — where trains on many older lines are not air-conditioned — fainted on Wednesday, prompting authorities to issue warnings about public transportation and advise travelers to stay hydrated.
Transport for London warned that the heat might force temporary speed restrictions on the city’s Tube network, where none of the trains are air-conditioned, and sweltering conditions are the norm even in mild summer weather. The agency advised riders to carry water at all times and not to board trains or buses if feeling unwell.
The Dutch meteorological institute tweeted that Wednesday’s heat wave broke a record that stood for nearly 75 years of the hottest temperature ever recorded in the Netherlands. The Dutch weather service Weerplaza said that the southern city of Eindhoven reported a temperature of 102.7 degrees Wednesday afternoon.
Belgium measured its highest temperature since records were first kept in 1833.
In sun-baked Kleine Brogel in northeastern Belgium, temperatures rose to 102.3, and the weather forecaster of the Royal Meteorological Institute said that it was “the highest ever Belgian temperature.”
The German Weather Service has put the entire country on heat alert and said the 2015 national heat record of 104.5 degrees, which is held by the Bavarian community of Kitzingen, could be broken.