EUROPE IS ROASTING under scorching temperatures this week, with red alerts issued for cities across the continent.
The punishing heat is driven by a plume of very warm air moving north from Europe, where several countries have experienced extreme heat in recent days.
A striking feature of the current hot spell has been how its has hit several western European countries harder than it has the south of the continent.
Most of mainland France was under extreme heat alerts on Thursday, with some 63 million people out of a total population of 67 million facing temperatures of over 30C.
The heat has also surpassed 30C for Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland recorded its hottest ever June temperature at 38C.
In the UK, London’s ambulance service said it recorded its highest ever number of “life-threatening emergencies” in one day because of “extreme heat”.
Becca Stafford, from Lusk in Dublin, is living in Amsterdam where the temperatures have hit 31 degrees.
This might not sound as intense as some other places, but the city is more used to highs of 21 degrees in June. Its humidity is also – like Ireland – typically higher than counterparts in Southern Europe.
“I’m covered in a layer of permanent sweat these past few days, as gross as it sounds,” Stafford said, before she later added: “It is rotten.”
When she finishes up for the day at the school where she works, Becca has to get a tram which has “hit-and-miss” air-conditioning, meaning it’s like “getting into an oven” on the worst days.
Some schools have adjusted their schedules to avoid the peak heat. At this time of year in the Netherlands, some are only doing half-days, but those near Stafford have switched to morning classes instead of the afternoon.
“When it started I thought, ‘this will be great craic, it’ll be really good on weekends and dotted across days like that’. But this is a week now of this, and it’s only getting hotter.”
Waterford man Nathan Stone is living in Belgium where it has hit 37 degrees today.
That is in stark contrast to normal average daytime highs of 20 to 22 degrees for this time of year.
It also saw Wednesday marked as the warmest 24 June in Belgium since records began almost two centuries ago.
“It feels like every summer is breaking records here,” said Stone, who has been working in Brussels as a lobbyist for the past five years.
As few homes in the country have air-conditioning systems, it has also meant Stone and many other colleagues are “sheltering in the office” where there is modern air-con.
He remarked about how there has been a “culture shift” among people considering renovations or other moves to ease the heat as a result.
“In Spain, houses are built to deal with this heat,” Stone added, explaining that the apartment he shares with his fiancée is “fantastic in the winter” due to its ability to contain heat.
“Now it turns the house into a complete trap.”
RTÉ Radio’s David McCullough show phoned its reporter Brian O’Connell while he was on a family holiday in Disneyland Paris, where Wednesday was the hottest day ever recorded in France, hitting almost 41 degrees in Paris.
Speaking from a sweltering queue, O’Connell told of how the Disneyland operators had closed some of the major rides out of precaution.
Similar measures were taken with the Eiffel Tower, which was closed early on Wednesday due to the heat.
A regular sight in Paris this week, the reporter added, was “parents putting their kids’ caps into the water and putting it on their kids’ heads” in a desperate effort to keep their children cool.
“It’s having a huge effect,” O’Connell said.
The weather in France has proved to be a real danger to life.
More than 40 people drowned in recent days as they tried to escape the warm temperatures and a three-year-old boy died on Thursday after becoming trapped in his family’s car in the Paris suburbs.
William Parkinson from Churchtown in Dublin is on a holiday with his family near Lisbon in Portugal, where the weather is a few days ahead of the rest of Europe in returning to calmer temperatures.
But when the family arrived last weekend, it was almost 40 degrees and uncomfortable outside.
William and his wife have been trying to cater for their toddler in the hot spell of the past week, and guard against dehydration.
“We’re travelling with our toddler son so making sure he drinks lots of water, top up the sun cream every hour or so and is getting a nap in between the hottest hours of the day,” he said.
Temperatures are expected to fall in Western Europe from Friday, but Eastern Europe was on red alert as temperatures climbed into the weekend.
Scientists have shown that recurring heatwaves are a clear marker of global warming, and warn they are set to become more frequent, longer and more intense.
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