Europe wilts under early summer heat wave

Experts say climate change is already affecting rainfall patterns and evaporation rates across the region, with knock-on effects for agriculture, industry and wildlife

A blanket of hot air stretching from the Mediterranean to the North Sea is bringing much of Western Europe its first heat wave of the summer, with temperatures on Friday exceeding 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) from London to Paris.

Meteorologists say the unusually early heat wave is a sign of what's to come as global warming continues, moving up in the calendar the temperatures that Europe would previously have seen only in July and August.

“In some parts of Spain and France, temperatures are more than 10 degrees higher — that’s huge — than the average for this time of year,” Clare Nullis, a spokesperson for the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, said.

In France, some 18 million people woke up to heat wave alerts affecting about a third of the country on Friday. Forest fire warnings were issued from the Pyrenees in the south to the Paris region.

Tourists dunked their feet in fountains near the Eiffel Tower or sought relief in the Mediterranean.

France has introduced numerous measures to cope with extreme summer temperatures following a deadly heat wave in 2003 that killed about 15,000 people.

On Friday, schoolchildren were allowed to skip classes in the 12 western and southwestern French regions that were under the highest alert. The government stepped up efforts to ensure nursing home residents and other vulnerable populations could stay hydrated.