All-time temperature records tumble again as heatwave sears Europe

Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium have recorded all-time national temperature highs for the second day running and Paris has had its hottest day ever as the second dangerous heatwave of the summer sears western Europe.

The extreme temperatures follow a similar heatwave last month that made it the hottest June on record. Scientists say the climate crisis is making summer heatwaves five times more likely and significantly more intense.

Wednesday’s Dutch record of 39.3C (102.7F), set in Eindhoven, lasted less than 24 hours, with the mercury at a weather station at the southern Gilze-Rijen airbase climbing on Thursday afternoon to 40.4C, the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) said.

After recording a new high of 40.2C at Angleur on Wednesday, Belgium’s Royal Meteorological Institute (KMI-RMI) said the temperature at Kleine Brogel near the Dutch border rose on Thursday to 40.6C. The previous records in both countries dated back to the 1940s.

“This is the highest recorded temperature for Belgium in history – since the beginning of measurements in 1833,” said the KMI-RMI’s Alex Dewalque. Britain also set a new temperature record for July and was on course to register an all-time high.

Germany’s national DWD weather service said it measured 41.5C in the north-western town of Lingen on Thursday, the first time the temperature has been recorded above 41C in the country. It came a day after an all-time national high of 40.5C was recorded in Geilenkirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Météo-France said the mercury at its Paris-Montsouris station in the French capital surpassed the previous high of 40.4C, set in July 1947, soon after 1pm and continued to climb, reaching 42.6C soon after 4pm.

“And it could climb even higher,” the service said, noting that 43C in the shade “is the average maximum temperature in Baghdad, Iraq in July”. David Salas y Mélia, a climatologist, said the heatwave was one “of quite exceptional intensity”.

DWD said the mass of scorching air was hanging “like a bell” over an area stretching from the central Mediterranean to Scandinavia, squeezed between low-pressure zones over western Russia and the eastern Atlantic.

As authorities across the continent handed out free water to homeless people, placed hospitals and residential care institutions on high alert and opened municipal buildings to anyone seeking shade, trains were slowed in several countries to avoid damage to lines, which could buckle in the heat.

France’s SNCF rail operator and the Métro in Paris advised travellers to postpone their trips if possible. “I ask everyone who can avoid or delay their journeys to do so,” the French environment minister, Élisabeth Borne, said. “When it is this hot it is not just people in a fragile state who can have health problems.”

Germany’s Deutsche Bahn also said rail passengers who had booked tickets for Thursday or Friday and wanted to delay their trips because of the heat could do so until 4 August without extra charge.

With water restrictions in place in many areas, low river levels prompted officials to ban cruises on a 37-mile (60km) stretch of the River Danube in Germany. A zoo in Belgium said it was feeding frozen chickens to its tigers and watermelons encased in ice to its bears.

Météo-France said the conditions “require particular care, notably for vulnerable or exposed people”. The French prime minister, Édouard Philippe, said people “must take care of themselves but above all others, especially those who are alone”.

Major French cities including Lille, Rouen, Dijon and Strasbourg were also set to register new all-time highs, the service said, joining a dozen others – including Bordeaux – to have set records this week.

The government remains haunted by the heatwave of summer 2003, which led to 15,000 premature deaths, particularly of elderly people, and heavy criticism of authorities for not mobilising fast enough.

The peak of the latest heatwave is forecast on Thursday, with cooler weather and rain expected to provide relief from Friday. But in the meantime, 20 départements in northern France, 13 Italian cities and all of Belgium remained on red alert.

The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Andorra, Luxembourg, Poland and Germany all set new monthly records during last month’s European heatwave, while France recorded its highest ever temperature of 45.9C in the southern commune of Gallargues-le-Montueux.

A study published this year by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich said the 2018 summer heatwave across northern Europe would have been “statistically impossible” without climate change driven by human activity.