LONDON — Britain on Monday braced for what could become its hottest day on record, as French authorities warned of a “heat apocalypse” and emergency services across Europe confronted spreading wildfires and rising death tolls.
British authorities have declared a national emergency and for the first time issued a “red extreme” heat warning for large parts of England, while France’s meteorological service placed a stretch of its Atlantic coast under the highest-possible alert level.
Forecasters predicted that a number of heat records could be toppled Monday, with Britain expecting temperatures of up to 106 degrees (41 Celsius) — far above the current record of 101.7 degrees (38.7 Celsius), which was set in 2019. Temperatures in France were expected to top 104 degrees (40 Celsius) and the heat was expected to linger until at least Tuesday.
Nikos Christidis, a climate attribution researcher at the United Kingdom’s Met Office, said it reflected scientists’ expectation that climate change is making extreme heat events more frequent.
“The chances of seeing 40°C days in the U.K. could be as much as 10 times more likely in the current climate than under a natural climate unaffected by human influence,” he said in a statement.
The U.K Health Agency issued its highest level-four heat alert, warning illness and death could occur “among the fit and healthy.” Public health officials predicted that thousands of excess deaths could occur, even as some skeptics considered it hype.
Conservative Party lawmaker John Hayes told the Telegraph newspaper, “this is not a brave new world but a cowardly new world where we live in a country where we are frightened of the heat.”
But Britain isn’t designed for extreme heat.
Very few homes have air conditioning and instead houses have traditionally been built to retain heat.
Maintenance crews were spreading sand on the highways to keep the roads from, yes, melting.
Penny Endersby, the chief operating officer of Britain’s weather service, the Meteorological Office, called the forecast temperatures “absolutely unprecedented.”
She acknowledged that many Britons usually enjoyed a spell of sunny warmth. “This is not that sort of weather,” Endersby said. “Our lifestyles and our infrastructure are not adapted to what is coming.”
In London, workers wrapped the historic Hammersmith Bridge over the River Thames in silver insulation foil to protect the cast-iron spans from cracking in the heat.
Transit officials advised passengers to stay away and ordered trains to slow down as maintenance crews were on the lookout for steel tracks bending and buckling in the heat.
A Network Rail manager, Jake Kelly, told BBC Radio on Monday morning that the system was under “exceptional stress.”
“Our railway is made up of lots of components, many of them metal, which expand in the heat.” Kelly said.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan warned riders to avoid all public transit, including the Underground, “unless absolutely necessary.” The subway becomes a sauna on hot days. The system, parts of which date to the Victorian Age, has never seen the temperatures like those that are forecast.
