The MétéoFrance web site seems to be off-line. I wonder it it has been overwhelmed and has crashed because of today's extreme weather. (Here is confirmation.) This is supposed to be the last and hottest day of the current épisode caniculaire, the hot spell or heat wave. Here's the Accuweather forecast for Paris today.
Forecast for Paris today
The predicted high in Paris, 106ºF, equals 41ºC. I wonder if it will be an all-time high for the city (it the temperature actually gets that high). Meanwhile, I wonder the same thing about Saint-Aignan. Here's the Accuweather forecast for us today. The predicted high, 109ºF, is 43ºC.
Forecast for Saint-Aignan today
Yesterday we closed the house up tighter than we ever have before, and kept the fans going even though all the windows on the main floor and up in the loft were shut tight. It stayed slightly cooler in the house overall, I think, but the loft was still suffocatingly hot. We mangaged to sleep there last night anyway, and I slept pretty well. Low humidity, rapid cooling once the sun went down, and a big electric fan made it bearable.
Looking out a west-facing window a couple of days ago via this photo above, you can see how plants with deep roots — hedges, trees, and the grapevines — have held up despite the searing heat and extreme drought conditions.
And skies have been very pretty during this whole period of extreme drought. It still hasn't rained since about June 15. That is supposed to change over the next couple of days. The other weather site we track, www.météociel.fr, says we should expect some rain tomorrow (Fri.) and rain pretty much all day Saturday, with a high of 70ºF. Won't that be a shock...
Aujourd'hui, Paris devrait battre le record de chaleur jamais enregistré de 40,4 le 28 juillet 1947. Ce jour-là, en sortant de l'appartement, j'ai eu l'impression d'entrer dans une fournaise.
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to try that today and stay comfy in my rather cool apartment at 27.2 right now. I'll check the temperature in the afternoon to see how high it goes!
Hope you find a way to stay cool!
Right now it's 26.9 in the loft. All the windows are open. We have cross-ventilation. I really doubt our temperature will hit 43 outside today, but anything is possible I guess. I already did my walk with the dog this morning. Poor Walt has to go out with Tasha this afternoon, in the heat of the day.
DeleteSurvive these worst and I hope you will not have such hot days any more this summer. That is what i am hoping for us, here in NE Ohio. It is already much cooler but slowly getting warmer. I can only see ten days ahead (and every day the forecast changes!) but I don't see the mid and high 90s we had a few days ago. Your countryside looks very good considering the heat and drought.
ReplyDeleteWe can see the rain at the end of the tunnel now. And lower temperatures, at least for a few days.
Delete109!!?! That is nuts!
ReplyDeleteOui, c'est dingue.
DeleteI was watching the tour de France, yesterday. It was 43º! Then, they went into a rainstorm and the temperature dropped to 23º.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait for the rain to reach us in Nogent.
The weather here is sort of like the weather in California, or at least San Francisco: as soon as the sun goes behind a cloud, the temperature drops.
DeleteWe have battened down the hatches as much as possible here. When Nick came back from his walk at 9.30am with Hugo the car said it was 30ºC already.
ReplyDeleteLast night we gave up and brought a mattress downstairs to sleep on the living room floor where it is infinitely cooler but still very warm.
Only one more day of purgatory to go.
We've been okay so far, but Walt says he had a hard time getting to sleep last night. I didn't, and I slept normally. I've thought about sleeping down in the entry hall or utility room, but so far haven't taken that step. It's going to feel downright chilly tomorrow, and cold on Saturday, if the forecasts are accurate.
DeleteAll I can do is count the hours until Friday, when the heat will break. Days wasted in front of the TV because it's too hot to move, too hot to think. My computer shuts down from being overheated.
ReplyDeleteSurprisingly, it has been hotter in the north than down here in Carcassonne. We got to 34.7 C (94.5 F) yesterday. Today is cloudy and supposed to be a bit cooler (33 C). At 7 a.m. it was still 25 C but it felt downright cold. That's the benefit of no A/C--one's body becomes acclimated, though there are limits.
34.5 on the terrace right now, and 33.3 underneath. I haven't been using my desktop computer except early in the morning, because it's up in the loft where temperatures are élevées.
DeleteAs for AC, I remember living in Washinton DC for a few years. I constantly had a cold because in summer it was so hot outside and so cold inside, and in winter vice-versa. I really don't like air-conditioning, except in the car.
According to Météo Paris it is 40.4 C in Paris at 2:30 P.M. Same temperature as the last record in July 1947. In the apartment, with no AC, it is a cool 28.4 C. It looks like, as predicted, it will be a new record.
ReplyDeleteAccording to meteociel.fr, it's 40.5°C in Valençay right now. That's about 20 km east of us. In the loft, it's 31.8. You live in a very protected environment, low on the ground with high walls around you. I wonder what the temperature is in the apartment on the top floor of your building. It is exposed to the sun as our house is.
DeleteThe reason it is so cool in the apartment is because it is on the American first and a half floor and because of that, the external stone walls are very thick and not heat conductive. The reverse happens in winter. Without heating, the inside temperature goes rarely below 10/12 C.
ReplyDeleteThe higher the apartments, the thinner the outside walls and hotter they get. I have no idea what the inside temperature is in the 6th floor apartments, but certainly several degrees, maybe as much as ten!, higher than in mine. I'm lucky.
At 3:30 PM it is 41C outside and 28.4 C inside!
Thinking about it, the apartment is not on the first floor, but rather on an elevated ground floor.
DeleteYour apartment is over what we call an English basement, meaning a basement halfway under ground level with small windows up at ceiling level. I remember thinking, when we were talking about buying the apartment from you all those years ago, what a great space for a master bedroom suite, with bathroom, that would have been. No noise from above at night, for example, since that would have been our living/dining room and kitchen.
DeleteHere is what Météo Paris says:
ReplyDeleteTempératures maximales provisoires à 15 h battant tous les records absolus : 41,9°C à Orly, 41,7°C à Paris Montsouris (jusqu‘à 42,4°C depuis), 41,5°C au Bourget, 41,0°C à Melun, 40,9°C à Roissy, 40,3°C à Pontoise, 40,1°C à Trappes, 39,7°C à Villacoublay.
40.5 on our terrasse/deck right now.
DeleteI hope your humidity isn't too bad! chm, since you didn't go to Salton this year, Salton weather decided to come to you! I hope those in the city without air conditioning survive this ok.
ReplyDeleteOnce you've tasted the humidity in Washington, DC, any other location feels like it is the driest place on Earth.
DeleteNo, the humidity in Paris is not that bad and is quite bearable.
The temperature in the apartment never went over 83F, which is OK with me.
The temperature here in Mareuil/St-Aignan has dropped from 40.4 to 35.7 over the past 45 minutes.
DeleteHere in Paris the temperature dropped from an absolute record high of 42.6 C to 37.4 C right now!
DeleteI envy you. No relief yet for us tomorrow. We'll have to wait till Saturday for lower temps and some rain . :(( I really think that this is the result of what we've been doing to this beautiful planet of ours for years. It's so worrying.
ReplyDeleteWe are still waiting for the rain. But it is breezy and much cooler today than yesterday. I agree with you that we have negatively affected the planet. Air-conditioning has a lot to do with that. But then there are just too many people on the planet, with too many cars and planes and houses.
Delete