France set for week of hot weather with 30C expected in south west

[Article updated on October 17 with further information on the temperatures expected this week.]

France is set to experience another week of warm weather after a summer of heatwaves and droughts, with temperatures expected to reach close to 30C in the southwest and remain above 20C in other areas until next Friday (October 21).

Beginning today, the mercury will rise to around 28C in places such as Agen (Lot-et-Garonne) and Toulouse (Haute-Garonne). In the north, it will also be higher than seasonal averages with around 19C in Paris, 20C in Nantes (Loire-Atlantique) and 18C in Lille.

The peak is expected to already be here but high temperatures will remain for much of the week. The average temperature between Monday and Wednesday is expected to be 19C, which is just below the record for this time of year recorded in 2014: 19.2C.

Monday afternoon will see highs of 22-28C in western and southwestern France, and Tuesday will bring temperatures of 22-24C in Brittany and Ile-de-France.

October is normally seen as a month in which the summer warmth drops away, with temperatures decreasing by 1C ever six days.

However, it is not the first time that France has experienced a week of similarly hot weather in October, Frédéric Nathan, a forecaster at Météo-France, told Franceinfo. He said that mild weeks of weather had happened in October in previous decades but that this year’s highs were “in line with a crazy summer in terms of heat”.

Claire Chanal, another forecaster at Météo-France, said that this year is still on track to be the hottest since records began in 1947.

“In mid-October, the soils are very dry and the rainfall deficit for the country as a whole is on average 60%,” she said.

Several French towns have seen temperature records broken this year, with Toulouse, for example, experiencing 129 days where temperatures rose above 25C, compared to a previous record of 116.

France has had 46 heatwaves since 1947, and this type of weather has become three times more common over the last 35 years. Average temperatures have risen by 1.7C since 1900.

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