Eight departments in western France have been placed on orange heat alert for Tuesday as part of an unprecedentedly early heatwave.
Météo-France extended the alert to 18 departments on Monday before placing eight on orange alert for Tuesday: Finistère, Morbihan, Manche, Ille-et-Vilaine, Maine-et-Loire, Mayenne, Vendée and Loire-Atlantique. Temperatures have been 10 to 15 °C above seasonal norms since last week.
Finistère had already been placed on yellow alert on Sunday, a first in May since the system was created in 2004. Cyril Wuest, a meteorologist at La Chaîne Météo, said: “It is even the earliest heatwave observed in more than a century.”
The episode is caused by a “heat dome,” an area of high pressure that traps hot air from the Sahara. The system is expected to persist at least until next weekend.