(ETH) – What is being deemed a record-breaking heatwave is set to bake Europe with temperatures of up to 50C (122F) according to Express-News. Plumes of scorching air from North Africa will begin to engulf large parts of Europe this weekend – in what is being described as a “catastrophic heatwave” by one meteorologist.
The freak weather event is being charged by rare sirocco winds and will carry the sweltering conditions from the Sahara desert over southern Europe. Italy is expected to experience the first blast of the brutal heat on Sunday before the area of high pressure spreads southeast towards Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey.
Greece has already experienced its hottest day on record this week, according to The New York Times, and wildfires raged across the region, leaving much of Southern Europe struggling to cope. The National Observatory of Athens weather service on Monday registered the highest temperature ever officially recorded in the country — 46.3 degrees Celsius, or 115.3 degrees Fahrenheit — in the central Greek region of Phthiotis.
Temperatures were forecast to climb to 113 degrees Fahrenheit in Athens on Tuesday and top 115 degrees in parts of central Greece, according to the country’s National Meteorological Service. “We are facing the worst heatwave since 1987,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Monday, noting that the authorities were doing “everything humanly possible” to secure an adequate electricity supply. He appealed to people to limit their use of electricity in the early afternoon and at night to ensure that the grid holds up.
Wildfires also continued to burn Tuesday in parts of Turkey, fueled by the extreme heat according to CNN. At least eight people had died as a result of the fires in Mugla and Antalya provinces as of Tuesday, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
The region’s heatwave comes on the heels of devastating wildfires last week in Spain, Greece and the Italian island of Sardinia and less than a month after catastrophic flooding in northern Europe claimed more than 200 lives.
Experts say freak weather events like the floods in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, as well as the recent heatwave and wildfires across Canada and the US, are a sign of the impacts of climate change. Droughts are becoming more frequent and more severe in southern Europe, and environmental authorities have warned that the region is at the greatest risk from the impacts of climate change on the continent.
