Main Points Key ReadsIreland ‘at the edge’ of European heat dome as Met Éireann issues hot-weather warnings
With temperatures in Ireland bouncing around the mid-20s, Met Éireann has issued a status yellow advisory from midday Tuesday until Friday morning, warning of “exceptionally warm weather” that could lead to water safety issues, uncomfortable sleeping conditions and heat stress.
This is the second time this summer a prolonged heatwave has seized the Continent. But behind this spike in temperatures is a “heat dome” hovering above the land mass.
The phrase “heat dome” has only come into use relatively recently and “isn’t a traditional meteorological term”, according to Matthew Martin, a forecasting meteorologist at Met Éireann. He said it was commonly used “to refer to a slow moving area of high pressure” that “usually develops above large, continental areas”.
Read our full explainer here.
Here is the weather forecast for today, with temperatures for some of the key European cities:
Paris 41
Bordeaux 39
Madrid 38
Frankfurt 37
Brussels 36
Rome 35
Bologna 35
London 34
Amsterdam 34
Zurich 32
Prague 32
Berlin 31
Barcelona 31
Essentially, if you are anywhere between Lisbon (24) and Warsaw (27), it will be super hot.
Europe is facing another day of an unprecedented heatwave, with temperatures breaking records in several countries.
A Met Éireann high-temperature alert kicked in at noon on Tuesday, and runs until Friday, with a daily high of 28.3 degrees recorded at the Phoenix Park in Dublin.
The UK is braced for record-breaking temperatures, with schools to close and people urged not to travel, as temperatures are set to potentially reach 40 degrees on Wednesday and Thursday in some parts of England and Wales, and a red weather warning for extreme heat is in place for areas stretching from London to Swansea and Somerset to Birmingham.
On Tuesday, France registered its hottest day on record as 40 people across the country were confirmed to have drowned while swimming in unsupervised areas over the last few days. More than 90 per cent of the French population is exposed to extreme heat – government data shows.
Rome, Milan, Florence, Turin, Venice and 10 other Italian cities were subject to the state’s highest level of alert, meaning the heat is deemed to pose a risk to the general population.
In the coming days, the heatwave is expected to extend into eastern Europe.
“Around the world climate disasters are becoming more frequent, more destructive and more costly,” United Nations secretary general António Guterres told a climate conference in London, while the city was gripped by suffocating heat. “London isn’t just calling, it’s cooking,” he said.
We’ll have live updates here throughout the day on the situation across Europe.
How to sleep in hot weather
Irish homes are designed to retain heat in colder months, which can quickly make them feel stuffy and warm as temperatures rise, leaving us searching for ways to cool down to sleep more comfortably.
The Irish Times published a piece on this last week, advising on simple ways to adapt your home to help it feel cooler. These include:
Keeping blinds and curtains closed during the hottest part of the day to keep the room cooler. If you are renovating or extending your home, it is worth thinking carefully about glazing and shading too.
Cooking outdoors where possible or using smaller appliances such as air fryers, instead of ovens or hobs, and keeping extraction fans running after cooking.
Rethinking bedding and switching to a lighter 4.5 tog duvet, as well as using breathable natural fabrics such as cotton and linen.
Read the full piece here.
Lower temperatures could come to parts of Europe later today
Some relief from the heatwave could start to come from the west of Europe later today, which is when Spain’s national weather service said temperatures would drop in most of the country.
By the afternoon, only parts of the Basque country in the north will still be marked red, and on Thursday no part of Spain will be rated either red or orange.
Power outages in France
About 68,000 households were without electricity in western France on Wednesday, authorities said – the country’s first major power outage of the latest bout of extreme weather.
The outage, which involved a transformer on the electricity grid, was related to extreme temperatures, the prefecture in the coastal department of Finistere said in a statement.
Tuesday was the hottest day recorded in France, with an average temperature of 29.8C across the country. Similar conditions are expected until the weekend, with highs between 40 and 42 degrees.