Weather: the scenarios envisaged for next week

The heat is making a comeback in France! Maybe even a little too much, because meteorologists are predicting a sweltering heat wave for next week. Well, for now. It is indeed impossible to know more, because the forecasts are still too unstable for the time being to establish an accurate estimate. Different scenarios are also considered: the United States GFS model predicts heat peaks of up to 42 degrees during the day. This is not necessarily the case of the European model, the CEP, which draws another scenario.

You shouldn’t think that such a situation is necessarily due to global warming, as Pascal Scaviner, head of the forecast service at La Chaine Météo points out: “The heat wave forecasts for July are completely normal”, he explains. it, not without pursuing. “Compared to 2019 when a great heat wave had reached France, with temperatures of up to 42 degrees, the situation is completely different. The air mass at altitude was warmer with a temperature of up to 24°C around 1500 m altitude, against 20°C for the current average forecast.” In fact, judges the specialist, the worst possible scenario would be a heat wave like last June.

However, this is a scenario that currently seems unlikely. For Etienne Kapikian, forecaster at Météo France, interviewed by Le Parisien, “it is too early to say that we are heading for a heat wave”. “The scenarios are fluctuating. We do not yet know with certainty the duration of the phenomenon or its precise location beyond the southern part of France”. And if stormy forecasts are possible for the future, they are still very uncertain. According to La Chaîne Météo, there is still a 20% chance that thunderstorms will appear. In any case, the forecast for next week promises beautiful sunny days, very very hot. Here are the most likely predictions for next week.

The US weather forecasting model, the GFS, appears to be the more likely of the two alternatives. It is reputed to be 60% reliable and indicates temperatures higher than the European model, ranging from 30 to 42 degrees, or 5 degrees higher.

According to him, heat peaks should be expected over a large part of the country for Friday July 15, 2022, but surprisingly it would be much less likely that such a phenomenon would be generalized to the whole of France. It is therefore a much more worrying model than its European counterpart, providing for less significant heat peaks.

This is the less likely scenario of the two, with a 40% chance of it happening. He would also be the most reassuring model.

In fact, it predicts lower temperatures than the US model does. In France, he therefore predicts a milder rise in the thermometer and heat peaks only affecting narrower areas. Be careful though, some regions could face temperatures approaching 40-42 degrees during the day in restricted areas and cooler areas, below 25 degrees. For now, we still have to wait for the forecasts to be refined to define precisely whether the heat wave is a heat wave.