Temperature hits high of 28 degrees with heat warning in place until morning

Main Points

• A nationwide high-temperature warning for the Republic has been extended into Saturday by Met Éireann
• A status orange thunderstorm warning was in place for counties Galway, Mayo and Roscommon. It expired at 8pm. An orange warning was in place for Co Sligo until 9pm.
• A separate thunderstorm warning for Cavan, Donegal, Monaghan, Longford and all of Connacht will continue from 6pm to 10pm
• In Northern Ireland, thunderstorm warnings are in place for counties Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Derry until 10pm
• Three stations in Ireland have now met heatwave criteria, Met Éireann confirmed
• A heat dome has pushed temperatures above 40 degrees in parts of western Europe this week, leading to hundreds of deaths

Key Reads

• Why is it so hot and when will Ireland’s ‘exceptionally warm weather’ end?
• Do I have to go to work during Ireland’s heatwave?
• From sunscreen to staying cool: how to keep yourself and your family safe in the heat
• ‘Bathers should take care’: Swimmers advised to avoid some spots in Dublin due to rainfall
• In pictures: Heatwave grips Ireland

Thunderstorm warnings remain in place until 10pm

The status orange warning in Co Sligo passed at 9pm.

A status yellow thunderstorm warning remains in place for Connacht and counties Cavan, Donegal, Monaghan and Longford until 10pm.

A separate status yellow high temperature warning remains in place for the whole country until 9am on Saturday.

Orange storm warning for Sligo as others expire

Met Éireann has issued a status orange thunderstorm warning for Sligo and said that while clusters of thunderstorms could occur in places, “not all areas will experience them”. The warning took effect at 7pm and will expire at 9pm.

Swiss nuclear reactor shut down over heat concerns

Switzerland has broken its June heat record for second day, with a temperature of 38.8 degrees recorded.

The soaring temperatures forced the nuclear reactors at Europe’s oldest nuclear plant to be shut down.

On its website, energy company Axpo said: “The temperature of the Aare river reached 25 degrees again yesterday and today.

“Sufficient cooling is not in sight.”

As a consequence, it said, the Beznau nuclear power plant “has temporarily shut down both reactors”.

Calls for Britain to act to protect people against soaring temperatures

The UK government is facing increasingly urgent calls for action to protect people against the intensifying effects of the climate crisis, as the highest maximum temperature record for June was broken for the third day in a row.

With the country in the grip of the worst heatwave ever recorded in western Europe – a direct result of global heating – the chair of parliament’s environmental audit committee warned ministers of the urgent threat and said the UK was falling “far short of what is needed”.

Toby Perkins said a significant number of deaths were likely as a result of the current heatwave. Previous heatwaves have killed thousands. He also warned of “devastating” effects on hospitals, care homes and schools, as well as transport, water, food and IT systems.

Perkins demanded answers from the environment secretary, Emma Reynolds, on how the government planned to tackle overheating in buildings and for its views on establishing maximum workplace temperatures, prescribing air conditioning for vulnerable people and changing school timetables. Others have warned of the danger to children in baking classrooms and of losses of hundreds of millions of pounds to the economy.

The highest maximum temperature record for June was broken three days in a row this week, with a provisional temperature of 37.3 degrees recorded in Santon Downham, Suffolk, after two earlier Friday recordings also broke Thursday’s peak of 36.7 degrees at Merryfield, Somerset. – Guardian Service

Heatwave set to ease as weekend starts

Ireland should be able to sleep a little easier tonight with the country entering a period of weather transition this evening stretching into tomorrow.

The soaring temperatures that prompted Met Éireann to declare an official heatwave – meaning five successive days with temperatures topping 25 degrees – will start to fall this evening, with temperatures of between 18 and 23 degrees likely on Saturday.

The fall in temperatures will be joined by rain which will spread across much of the country tomorrow although there will still be some room for some bright and sunny spells, Met Éireann has said.

The highest temperatures recorded in the country today were in the Phoenix Park and Oak Park in Carlow, with the weather stations in both locations recording a high of 28.2 degrees.

The intense thunderstorms that swept over Clare and Galway throughout the afternoon have now moved up towards Mayo but are set to dissipate as the evening wears on.

Thousands of homes still without power on Friday afternoon, ESB says

About 6,500 homes, farms and businesses were without power in Ireland as of 5pm on Friday following outages associated with thunderstorms across parts of the country, ESB Networks has said.

“Crews will continue to work to restore power to affected areas where it is safe to do so, noting the status orange and yellow thunderstorm warnings which remain in place,” the energy provider said in a statement to The Irish Times.

Status orange thunderstorm warning for Galway, Mayo and Roscommon effective immediately

Met Éireann has placed counties Galway, Mayo and Roscommon under a status orange thunderstorm warning with immediate effect.

As of now, the warning is to be in place until 8pm this evening.

“Clusters of thunderstorms in places” are to be expected, Met Éireann said in a statement, but “not all areas will experience them”.

It listed localised flooding, hail damage, difficult travelling conditions, damage to utilities including power, water, gas and telecommunications, very gusty winds and lightning damage as possible impacts of the storms.

Irish runners get go-ahead to race in Paris amid ‘exceptional heatwave’

Irish runners will, in the end, get to race this Sunday in the Paris Diamond League, a major meet on the international athletics circuit.

But this is only allowed in an “adapted format”, with the day’s schedule of events being adjusted to ensure the safety of participants, after the Parisian police force issued orders for large events in the city to be cancelled this weekend.

Middle-distance runners Sarah Healy and Andrew Coscoran will run their 1,500-metre races under temperatures forecast to soar well over 30 degrees in the French capital this weekend. And 400-metre sprinter Sharlene Mawdsley is set to make her Diamond League debut in the record-breaking heat.

On Friday morning, the Parisian police force issued a statement saying it had asked the organisers of several events, such as a music festival and the city’s Pride march, to cancel their plans.

It read: “The exceptional heatwave affecting the Paris metropolitan area since June 21 is putting a strain on emergency services and healthcare facilities, whose response and treatment capacity is now saturated.

“Therefore, considering these factors and in order to concentrate the remaining resources on assisting the most vulnerable, the Prefect of Police has asked the organisers to cancel their events.

“Should they refuse, the Prefect of Police will prohibit them by decree,” it added.

The French Athletics Federation responded that, in agreement with the police force, its event “will go ahead in an adapted format to ensure the safety of all participants”, although it did cancel “all activities for athletics clubs and licensed members” elsewhere in the country.

Météo-France has forecast a high of 39 degrees in Paris on Saturday and a peak of 32 on Sunday, prompting Paris police to place the city under a red alert for an “extreme heatwave”.

‘Opening the window hardly brought relief’

Europe correspondent Naomi O’Leary reports from Paris on how the city is coping with the heatwave:

The black of the night was as warm as the typical peak temperature for a June summer day, hardly dropping below 25 degrees in towns and cities across France.

Opening the window hardly brought relief. Fans and air conditioners were sold out everywhere. People stayed stretched out on blankets in the parks of Paris overnight.

As soon as the sun rose, it was time to shut the windows and cover the glass by any means possible.

UK record for hottest day in June broken for third day in a row

The UK record for the hottest June day ever has been broken again, with 37.1 degrees provisionally recorded in Cavendish, Suffolk, England, on Friday afternoon, according to the Met Office.

This is the third day in a row the record has been broken. These smashed the long-standing record for June heat – which dates back to the summer of 1976 – by more than 1 degree, which is significant given such records were usually broken only by a fraction of a degree in the past. – PA

WHO warns of serious illness due to the heatwave

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that “heat can make people seriously ill”, especially those with pre-existing health conditions.

It flagged headaches, dizziness, nausea, cramps, palpitations, excessive sweating and unusual tiredness as early signs to watch out for, in a statement on social media.

Heatwave status in Ireland confirmed

Three weather stations – Oak Park, Co Carlow, Moore Park, Co Cork, and Gurteen, Co Tipperary – have now met heatwave criteria after they recorded temperatures above 25 degrees for five consecutive days, including today, Met Éireann has confirmed.

Three stations have also, provisionally, had tropical nights last night. These were:

• Oak Park, Co Carlow (20.3 degrees)
• Casement Aerodrome, Co Dublin (20.4 degrees)
• Cork Airport, Co Cork (20 degrees)

Seven of Met Éireann’s automatic stations also had tropical nights ending 9am this morning, the forecaster said:

• Portlaoise WWTP, Co Laois (21 degrees)
• Curragh Racecourse, Co Kildare (20.8 degrees)
• Clonmel WWTP, Co Tipperary (20.7 degrees)
• Edenderry (Ballinla), Co Offaly (20.3 degrees)
• Durrow (Castlewood), Co Laois (20.2 degrees)
• Piltown (Kildalton Agri College), Co Kilkenny (20 degrees)
• Bunclody WWTP, Co Wexford (20 degrees)

8,000 without power in Ireland as a result of lightning strikes

ESB networks reported that there were still approximately 8,000 customers without power this morning, as a result of lightning strikes, and crews were on the ground working to resolve those issues.

Further thunderstorms may impact additional customers, and the public is reminded of the dangers posed by fallen live wires.

The advice is to stay away from any fallen cables or damaged electricity equipment and to report such cases to the ESB immediately.

Genoa becomes 18th Italian city covered by red heatwave alert

In Italy, Genoa has become the 18th Italian city covered by the red extreme health alert, ANSA news agency reported.

It joins 17 cities that already were on red alert, including some of major tourist attractions of Bologna, Florence, Rome, Turin and Verona.

Palermo’s courthouse suspended hearings until June 29th, while Florence’s Uffizi Gallery said it has extended a suspension of ticket sales imposed earlier this week, with only people with previous bookings allowed to enter, ANSA said.

“Due to the exceptional heatwave currently affecting the country (and Florence in particular) access to the Uffizi Gallery will be restricted to those with a pre-booked ticket only until and including Sunday 28 June. We apologise for any inconvenience caused,” Uffizi said in a statement.

Extreme heat adds pressure to food supplies

The scorching heat sweeping Europe has parched soils, distressed livestock and is keeping farmers away from fields, superseding the Iran war as the greatest challenge to food supplies.

In France, record-breaking temperatures are damaging corn crops and wiping out hundreds of thousands of chickens. In Spain, pigs are losing their appetite and some fruit is threatened at the key blossoming stage. In the UK, distressed cows are producing less milk.

Though the heat wave will ease by early next week, extreme weather has overshadowed the Middle East conflict as the biggest concern for farmers. Meteorologists are warning of above-normal temperatures for months to come as a developing El Niño compounds the impact of climate change for an industry already facing high fertiliser and fuel costs.

El Niño – a climate phenomenon that disrupts normal weather patterns every few years – has contributed to the heat wave across western Europe. This week, temperature highs were reached in the UK and France, where a record 72 departments are under red heat alerts, with similar warnings in effect in the UK, Germany and Switzerland.

Beyond Europe, El Niño is already impacting Asia’s food supplies. In India, it’s delayed the monsoon and reduced rainfall, a risk to rice and sugar. And in Vietnam, parts of the coffee belt are drying up.

“Even if energy and fertiliser markets normalise, adverse weather conditions in major producing regions could still tighten supplies and place upward pressure on food prices,” Máximo Torero, chief economist at the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation, said by email.

France, Europe’s top farming nation, has been the epicentre of the heatwave for more than a week, straining a corn crop that farmers finished planting just weeks ago.

“Some of my corn crops look stressed, with darker colour and their structure has changed. They look less like corn and more like leeks,” Franck Laborde, a farmer in Pyrénées-Atlantiques in southwest France, said. – Bloomberg

Here are some photos from the heatwave across Europe today:

Motorway in Germany buckles due to heat

Extreme heat caused the surface of the A2 motorway in eastern Germany to buckle and rupture over several lanes on Thursday evening, according to the BZ newspaper, damaging up ⁠to 30 vehicles, leaving two people with minor injuries and forcing the ​highway to be closed.

Firefighters respond to large wildfire in UK

Firefighters are trying to bring a large wildfire in Derbyshire, England, under control. The blaze, which has burned more than 500sq m of moorland and woodland on Tintwistle Moor, near Glossop, broke out on Wednesday evening.

Fire crews from Manchester and Derbyshire deployed a water-dropping helicopter and six fire engines on Thursday.

Thick clouds of smoke are affecting local villages and forcing road closures, while ash and smoke are impacting air quality in parts of Bolton and Greater Manchester.

Paris Pride March postponed over extreme temperature warnings

Organisers postponed the French capital’s weekend Pride march after police ordered them to change the date to avoid overwhelming response services already under pressure due to extreme heat, AFP reports.

Paris police ask organisers of Pride and a music festival to cancel due to heat

The Paris police have asked the organisers of the Pride march and the Solidays music festival to cancel their events due to the continuing extreme heat.

“While the weather forecast shows no improvement, some large-scale cultural or protest events, such as the Solidays festival, the Pride march and the athletics meeting at the Charléty stadium, are still scheduled for this weekend despite the adjustments made by the organisers and their efforts to increase their internal first aid capacity,” police said in a statement.

“The influx of several hundred thousand people to these events will create a high risk of overburdening a healthcare system already stretched to its limits.”

Therefore, the Prefect of Police has asked the organisers to cancel their events, adding that should they refuse, the Prefect of Police will “prohibit them by decree”.

55 drownings in France since start of heatwave

In France, the number of people who have drowned during the heatwave has risen to 55, sports minister Marina Ferrari told Franceinfo.

She is worried the situation could get worse as the heatwave continues. In comments reported by Le Figaro, she said two-thirds of the drownings took place at unsupervised or unauthorised swimming areas.

Sixty one French departments remain under the highest red extreme heat alert today.

London ambulances respond to record number of life-threatening emergencies

The London Ambulance Service said it had responded to its highest number of life-threatening emergencies ever on Wednesday.

Chief operating officer Craig Harman said the service expects “demand to grow day on day over the next couple of days”.

Harman urged people to drink responsibly during Saturday’s World Cup game. He advised people to drink “plenty of water” in between alcoholic beverages.

The ambulance service recorded a 50 per cent increase in life-threatening emergency calls compared with a typical Wednesday in June, with the number of cardiac arrests up 30 per cent.

Parisians temporarily banned from drinking in public

Parisians will be temporarily banned from drinking alcohol in public as hospitals in the French capital buckle under a deadly heatwave ‌gripping the country ‌and much of Europe.

“We are reaching a saturation point in hospital facilities,” the head of Paris police, Patrice Faure, said on Thursday. He warned the new measures, which include a ban on alcohol takeaway sales, were needed to stem increasing hospitalisations.

“I must ensure that the pressure decreases,” Faure said.

The French health minister, Stéphanie Rist, on Thursday said the ambulance service in Paris had reported four times more cardiac arrests than normal over a 24-hour period. Young people were also suffering cardiac arrests, she said.

The public drinking ban begins at noon on Friday and lasts until 7am Saturday, and then repeats the same hours from Saturday to Sunday.

Temperatures in Paris hit a June record of 40.9 degrees on Wednesday and pushed close to 40 degrees on Thursday. At least 48 people have died in France from drowning since the start of the heatwave, and three young children have been killed by heat in cars.ming in the record-breaking heatwave.

France is forecast to face at least several more days of stifling heat.

‘This is our new reality and it’s not going anywhere,’ warns Irish climate expert

The heatwave that has consumed much of western Europe has pushed temperatures well above 35 degrees for more than 100 million people and triggered weather warnings in more than 20 countries.

Europe is particularly affected because it is the fastest-warming continent, according to the European Union’s Copernicus climate change monitoring service, warming at more than twice the global average.

“As Europe’s climate continues to warm, heatwaves are projected to occur earlier and later in the year beyond summer,” according to Copernicus.

Peter Thorne, director of the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units, said this is in part due to climate change’s impact on the Arctic region.

With ice caps “melting rapidly”, the reflective surface of the northernmost part of the planet is disappearing, he said, and being replaced with land and sea that absorbs radiation more easily. This extreme weather “is hugely concerning”, he said.

“Undoubtedly, this is proof of human-induced climate change at work. This is our new reality and it’s not going anywhere,” he said.

European heatwave linked to ‘human-caused climate change’

The record-breaking heatwave engulfing western Europe would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused climate change, which has made this week’s soaring night-time temperatures 100 times more likely than they would have been just two decades ago, scientists said on Friday.

“Over the region studied, this heatwave is the most severe ever recorded,” the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group of climate scientists said in an analysis. Britain recorded a record-high temperature for June on Thursday, amid the deadly heatwave that has killed dozens, disrupted power supplies and shut schools and cultural landmarks.

Global warming has worsened Europe’s heatwaves in just a few decades, the WWA analysis found. A ‌similar ‌heatwave in June 1976 would have been about 3.5 degrees cooler than this one, WWA said.

Of more than 800 European cities analysed, 45 per cent have recorded, or are forecast to record, their highest heat stress levels for late June, the research found. Heat stress occurs when the body cannot cool itself through sweating.

In parts of France, overnight temperatures have stayed above 20 degrees for more than a week – a temperature threshold known as a “tropical night” – with some nights recording minimum temperatures of nearly 30 degrees.

High temperature and thunderstorm warnings for Ireland

A high temperature warning – with temperatures up to 29 degrees in many counties – remains in place for Ireland until Saturday morning, with Met Éireann warning of heavy and thunderous showers.

It will remain humid and warm throughout today, with a mix of sunshine and scattered showers.

Saturday will be markedly cooler with temperatures of 19 to 23 degrees.

Although Ireland is not under the heat dome, or area of high pressure trapping heat over continental Europe, temperatures reached a high of 32.1 degrees in Athenry, Co Galway, on Thursday.

There had been predictions that a new heat record could be set to beat the 33.3 degrees recorded in Co Kilkenny in 1887. In Northern Ireland, a high of 30.8 degrees was recorded in Castlederg in Co Tyrone.

Met Éireann has issued a yellow thunderstorm for all Connacht, and counties Cavan, Donegal, Monaghan, Clare, Tipperary, Kildare, Laois, Longford, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath from 9am until 6pm on Friday.