The heat arrived weeks before the summer season normally begins, and that timing has already cost lives. At least four teenagers died after apparently drowning in lakes and reservoirs across Britain as a spring heat wave scorched Western Europe on Tuesday, and a man of 60 drowned in the sea off England’s southwest coast, authorities said.
It was the second day running that the United Kingdom broke a century-old temperature record. A reading of 35.1 degrees Celsius, or 95.2 degrees Fahrenheit, at London’s Kew Gardens beat the 34.8 C mark set there the day before, according to the Met Office. The provisional figures erased a record of 32.8 C that had stood since 1922 and was matched in 1944.
London also logged a rare “tropical night,” the kind in which the temperature never drops below 20 C.
In France, records fell too. Temperatures reached 36 C in the southwest on Monday and stayed above 20 C through the night. Météo-France blamed a “heat dome,” a mass of heat pinned in place by a high-pressure front, for readings more than 10 degrees Celsius above normal for the time of year.
Across the Channel, French government spokesperson Maud Bregeon said at least seven deaths may be linked to the heat, including five drownings and two deaths during sports competitions. On the Atlantic coast, where strong riptides run, two swimmers drowned on Sunday at resorts in the Gironde region. The region’s top official, Sophie Brocas, urged beachgoers “to exercise the utmost caution.”
The danger is amplified by the calendar. The heat hit before the summer window when lifeguards normally patrol beaches. British commuters sweltered on Tuesday in subway carriages with no air conditioning, and trains at Waterloo station were disrupted by reports of smoke on the tracks. Firefighters in Scotland spent the night dousing a grass fire on Arthur’s Seat, the hill that rises over Edinburgh.
Health authorities issued an amber warning for England and much of the country through Thursday, pointing to a particular risk for older people in the hottest part of the day. Many homes, schools and businesses in Britain have no air conditioning at all.
Scientists tied the heat to a warming planet. “We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that heat wave events such as this have been made more likely and more severe due to climate change arising from our emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases,” said Peter Thorne, who leads the climate research centre at Ireland’s Maynooth University. “But, nevertheless, many of the records being set, particularly in the UK and France, are mind-bogglingly crazy.”
The heat stretched into Spain, where a weather official, Rubén del Campo, said: “We find ourselves with temperatures we normally see in the middle of the summer now in the month of May.” Seville reached 38 C over the weekend, and much of the Iberian Peninsula ran 5 to 10 degrees Celsius above normal. Rome was expected to reach 32 C on Tuesday.
Sources
- Exceptionally early heat wave shatters records, causes deaths across Europe | World News – Business Standard
- Exceptionally early heat wave shatters records and brings deaths in Europe – Los Angeles Times
