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Bathing friends on a jetty at Storkower See.
Photo: Patrick Pleul / picture alliance/dpa/dpa-Zentralbild
A heat record could be broken this weekend in Germany: The German Weather Service assumes that temperatures in the southwest will rise to 38 degrees Celsius locally.
According to the information, this was the last time this was the case 20 years ago in Herten in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Not quite as hot, but still warm, it should be almost nationwide.
Saturday could be the hottest day of the year so far in some places.
Except towards the coast, more than 30 degrees is expected.
Even at night it doesn't cool down completely, temperatures don't fall below 20 degrees.
The reason for the heat wave is therefore a high pressure area that moves east across the country on Saturday.
As a result, hot air from south-west Europe reaches us, which spreads across large parts of Germany, as the weather service announced.
Thunderstorms and squalls
In the north, on the other hand, it stays a little cooler.
Here, the DWD expects temperatures between 19 and 23 degrees for Saturday.
However, thunderstorms and squalls can occur across the country.
In the night to Sunday, these can even get a little heavier in the north.
The DWD expects some heavy showers or thunderstorms at up to twelve degrees on the North Sea.
In the south-west and in the middle of Germany it will remain hot on Sunday.
In the north and northwest, on the other hand, the DWD expects maximum values of 17 to 24 degrees.
There may be some rain here in some areas.
In the middle of the country, as well as in the west, south-west and on the Alps, it will remain sunny during the day.
In the evening strong thunderstorms are expected.
Heat wave in France: locally up to 42 degrees
In other parts of Europe, many people have been suffering from extremely high temperatures for days.
In France, the peak of a long-lasting heat wave with temperatures above 40 degrees is expected at the weekend.
The weather service spoke of the earliest heat wave since 1947. On Saturday, almost the entire country is likely to be affected.
14 departments in the southwest of the country are on alert, according to the weather service, temperatures could reach up to 42 degrees locally.
Several festivals, sporting and cultural events have been canceled due to the extreme heat.
Heat records had already been broken in 11 communities on Friday.
About 40.4 degrees were measured in Carcassonne.
In neighboring Spain, which is also affected by the unusual heat, wildfires have been devastating thousands of hectares of land for days.
Because of a fire in the central Spanish region of Castile-La Mancha, more than 3,000 people were evacuated from the Puy du Fou amusement park on Friday.
In the Sierra del Culebra in the northwest of the country, up to 7,000 hectares were affected, and 200 people had to be brought to safety there as a precaution.
It is also unusually hot in Great Britain: On Friday afternoon, temperatures had risen to over 30 degrees in some places, breaking the temperature records for the season for the third day in a row.
Northern Italy: Worst drought in 70 years
In northern Italy, the Po Valley is suffering from the worst drought in 70 years.
In the heavily agricultural area, some communities are now rationing water distribution.
According to the Coldiretti Agricultural Association, the drought is threatening half of the cultivated area in the Po Valley and almost a third of the country's agricultural production.
The President of Lombardy, Attilio Fontana, spoke of an "extraordinarily difficult situation".
He announced that a state of emergency would be declared soon.
According to scientists, the increase in heat waves and droughts is a direct result of global warming.
The intensity as well as the duration and frequency of these phenomena are increasing.
At least in Germany, cooling is to be expected in the new week.
Deep "Ophelia" is slowly pushing another low over France, a cold front with sometimes heavy rainfall from the north-west to the middle of Germany.
Behind the front, roughly north-west of a line from the Rhineland via the Lüneburg Heath to Western Pomerania, it is already noticeably cooler with maximum temperatures of 17 to 27 degrees.
fok/AFP/dpa
