It’s hot. Ok, that’s a fact. Tuesday, it was 36 ° C in Bordeaux and Toulouse, 35 ° C in Nantes, according to Météo-France, which forecasts for this Wednesday and Thursday temperatures of up to 37-38 ° C in the South-West and in lower Rhone Valley. And seven departments in the South-West, Drôme and Ardèche, are still placed on heatwave orange vigilance.
So it’s hot. But it is hot more or less long, more or less intensely. Depending on the temperatures reached, but also on climatic phenomena, heat episodes do not have the same name. Peak, wave, dome, feather… If these terms make us all sweat, they are not synonymous and refer to very distinct events. However, climate change should generate summers “increasingly hot, where 35°C will be the norm”, assured Météo-France at the start of the week. These heat episodes will therefore become more and more frequent and strong and this glossary could serve you well.