We had never experienced that in Ouessant. In Morlaix, Saint-Brieuc, Rennes or Bléruais either. Monday, we recorded more than 30 degrees on the island of the Breton tip, and more than 40 degrees for the first time in Finistère and in the prefecture of Côtes-d’Armor. Rennes and Nantes also erased their historic heat record with more than 41 degrees recorded in the afternoon on Monday. It was in Bléruais, a small rural town west of Rennes that the maximum was recorded with 41.6 degrees recorded at 5 p.m.
Such a hot day had never happened in the modern history of the region and is likely to mark the sweating bodies as well as the spirits. But to listen to meteorologists, these extreme heat scenarios are going to become more and more frequent. And undoubtedly more and more intense.
Warm air brought by a southeast wind
Steven Tual is a forecaster at Météo Bretagne. This Monday, he spent a good part of his day staring at the readings of the Breton stations, which almost all panicked. “The heat has accumulated and strengthened over the days. We see in Brittany temperatures that are normally recorded in the desert. In general, the region is rather spared by its island side. But there, we see the clear testimony of global warming, ”says the forecaster. This phenomenon of extreme heat does not surprise him but it questions him. “We knew it would happen but at such an intensity, it’s shocking. It challenges, we wonder what our climate will look like in fifty years, ”says Steven Tual.
This heat wave which has been hitting France for several days took a dramatic turn on Monday in a region often mocked for its rotten weather. “Almost all the stations broke their record with temperatures over 39 degrees everywhere,” adds Daniel Vendramini. The head of the Météo-France Ouest forecast service believes that it was the direction of the wind that transformed a hot day into a real furnace. “We have a south-easterly wind coming from the land and bringing very hot air from the south”. The problem is that a “cold drop” phenomenon is raging off Portugal and maintaining very high temperatures on the Atlantic coast.
Is the worst over? Not even. According to the forecaster, the night from Monday to Tuesday will be “very trying”. “We will perhaps remember it more than the 40 degrees of the day as the night will be abnormal”. At midnight, it should still be 33 degrees in Rennes! To breathe a little, we will have to wait until Tuesday morning for the change in direction of the wind, which will blow from the west and bring some air. A return to “normal” but which will remain very hot throughout the region. A situation that does not surprise the forecaster. “The situation we are experiencing corresponds to our projections. We are exposed to longer heat phenomena. What we consider today as abnormal will become more and more frequent, ”assures the part of Météo-France.
“Awareness is too late”
This day in hell may raise awareness as IPCC reports call for urgent climate action to limit global warming. “You see what we have with a warming of +1.1 degrees. Imagine what it will be with a difference of 2.7 degrees, ”raises Steven Tual. The Météo Bretagne forecaster is worried but above all angry. “I am annoyed because the IPCC has been warning us for years, but the awareness is much too late. I would like us to trust science, to listen to climate specialists”.
Another disturbing phenomenon awaits the region. While the temperatures will drop from Tuesday, Brittany should not be watered by the rain as it likes so much. A situation that worries both farmers who see their fields dry out, and firefighters who have to fight against more and more fires. This Monday, a major fire broke out in the Monts d’Arrée.