Britain and France set record high temperatures… Greece and Italy suffered from wildfires
World Meteorological Organization “Europe’s heat wave peaks today… Abnormal temperature until the middle of next week”
As Europe suffered from heatwaves, on the 19th (local time), records were set for the highest temperatures in Britain and France.
The British Meteorological Agency said the temperature in Corningsby, central Lincolnshire, reached 40.3 degrees Celsius as of 4 p.m. today, the highest in British history.
St. James’s Park in downtown London, Heathrow was 40.2 degrees and Kew Gardens was 40.1 degrees, and it was over 40 degrees in several areas.
The previous record was 38.7 degrees Celsius in Cambridge in 2019, but this morning the record was broken when the temperature measured 39.1 degrees Celsius in Surrey, South London.
The Korea Meteorological Administration said the previous record was broken at up to 34 observation points.
The night before was also one of the hottest in British history, with tropical nights.
In one area of West Yorkshire, the previous day’s lowest temperature was 25.9 degrees, the previous record was 23.9 degrees in Brighton on August 3, 1990.
Due to the heat wave that has continued since the previous day, railway and subway services have been canceled or reduced in large numbers.
The railroad tracks were bent everywhere and the pavement melted and the road rose upwards.
Network Rail, a British rail authority, said the temperature of the rails in the Suffolk area had soared to 62 degrees Celsius.
The high-voltage power line was stretched down and a fire broke out, stopping the railroad operation.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the fire department had declared a ‘major incident’ due to the series of fires and urged people not to do anything that could cause a fire, such as barbecues.
Wildfires have erupted across the country, including outside London, and the fire department is in a state of emergency.
Although telecommuting has increased, some office workers deliberately went to work in air-conditioned offices.
Overall, rail use decreased by about 40%.
The Supreme Court changed its hearing online over air conditioning issues, and the British Museum closed at 3pm.
Stephen Belcher, Chief Scientific Officer of the Meteorological Agency, said: “The Meteorological Agency study shows that it is virtually impossible for the UK temperature to reach 40 degrees, but climate change caused by greenhouse gases has made these extreme temperatures possible.”
“In a few decades, this will be a pretty cool summer,” Frederic Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College in the UK, warned the BBC about the effects of climate change.
Transport Minister Grant Chaps said it would take years for the UK to upgrade its infrastructure in response to the heat wave.
After the heat wave, it was predicted that heavy rain would fall immediately on the 20th.
In France, a neighboring country of the UK, there have been several places where the forest fires are not extinguished, especially in the western Atlantic coast, where the temperature exceeds 40 degrees.
In Gironde, which harbors Bordeaux, famous for its wine region, a forest fire that began last week burned 20,000 hectares (200 km2) of forest.
The Meteorological Agency said on Monday that 64 regions across France set new records for the highest temperature.
In the capital, Paris, as of 3 p.m. on the same day, the mercury level stood at 40.1 degrees Celsius, the third hottest day since weather observations began 150 years ago.
The daytime temperature in Paris was the highest on July 25, 2019, at 42.6 degrees, and on July 28, 1947 it reached 40.4 degrees.
A wildfire was spread by strong winds near Athens, the Greek capital.
The Greek fire department has deployed about 80 firefighters and 30 firefighting aircraft to extinguish a large wildfire in Pentelli, 27 km from Athens.
In Greece, large and small wildfires occurred simultaneously in the summer of last year, devastating 121,000 hectares (1,210 km2) of forest, twice the size of Seoul.
In the vicinity of Rome, the Italian capital, which is also suffering from the sweltering heat, large and small forest fires have been reported one after another in central Tuscany and northeastern Trieste, and the authorities are focusing their efforts on extinguishing the fire.
Northern Italy is experiencing double hardship due to the worst drought in 70 years in addition to the sweltering heat.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has predicted that the heat wave will peak in Europe today, and the abnormal temperature will continue through the middle of next week.
Robert Stefanski, head of the WMO Applied Climate Services Division, made this statement during a press conference at the UN Geneva Secretariat.
(Correspondents Yoon-Jeong Choi in London, Hee-Ahn in Geneva, Seong-Hoon Jeon in Rome, Hye-ran Hyun in Paris)
/yunhap news