Most of Europe is preparing to cope with the already severe heat wave, which is expected to intensify in the coming days, while some countries have implemented special measures to minimize the impact.
In France, 49/96 provinces in the mainland are placed on red alert, up from 35 provinces last weekend. Authorities announced the closure of 845 schools, while another 1,800 schools will let students go home earlier than usual. Some areas recorded temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius - the extreme level for June.
In the Gironde region in southwestern France, local authorities said that 3 people aged 80 to 95 died partly due to heat.
The French government bans the consumption of alcohol and beer in public places in provinces that are on red alert, and some towns cancel annual music festivals. French meteorologists warn that the current heat wave could be as serious as August 2003 - a disaster that claimed the lives of nearly 15,000 people. French Deputy Minister of Ecology Mathieu Lefevre said this is a "particularly intense and particularly early" heat wave.
Both France and Belgium have announced railway service cuts. In France, the main affected routes are trains in the Paris suburbs. The Belgian national railway company SNCB canceled some train trips during peak hours to reduce the risk of incidents causing railway congestion. Mr. David Dehenauw, head of the forecasting department of the IRM Meteorological Institute in Belgium, warned that the temperature next week is expected to be "the highest ever recorded level" in this country.
The Spanish meteorological agency Aemet warned of "extremely high" temperatures lasting day and night until the end of June 24, with forecasts of up to 44 degrees Celsius in some places. In Madrid, authorities canceled the public screening of the Spanish national team's victory over Saudi Arabia at the World Cup due to extreme heat.
In the UK, Liz Bentley, Executive Director of the Royal Weather Society, predicts that June temperature records will be "completely erased", with temperatures possibly reaching 38-39 degrees Celsius, far exceeding the current record of 35.6 degrees Celsius. Ms. Bentley emphasized that these will be two consecutive months - May and June - when the UK temperature record is broken with an amplitude of more than 2 degrees Celsius.
Mr. Akshay Deoras, a senior researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading (UK), affirmed that climate change caused by humans has created a "launch pad" for this heat wave, making extreme temperatures much hotter than in the past.
