Twenty years per day. Paris crushed, Thursday, its previous heat record recorded on May 1, with 29.4 ° C reported at 4 p.m., against the 28.7 ° C reports … In 2005. It had never been so hot in the French capital on the day of the International Workers’ Day since the start of the measures in 1873, according to Météo France. In question: “The episode of early warmth” which affects the whole of France this week, With temperatures worthy of a late May or early June – which continue this Friday, May 2.
This event is «comparable» to that of 2005 according to the meteorological organization, during which temperatures had even exceeded 31 ° C in Dax, in the southwest.
But this year, the heat focuses in the north of France. Paris and its suburbs were the hottest region in mainland France – more than on the French Riviera or Corsica were on Thursday. He made 30.3 ° C in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine), as well as 30.2 ° C in Achères (Yvelines) and in Neuilly-sur-Marne (Seine-Saint-Denis), noted to Libération Christine Berne, climatologist at Météo France.
Even more exceptional, it is the sweetness in Normandy and in Hauts-de-France that strikes the scientist: “The statements are less, certainly, but more unpublished. Caen reached 28.2 ° C, a record. The closest had been measured in April 2018, with 26.6 ° C. In Lille too, with 28.5 ° C, similar to the statement of May 1, 2005 ”. The south of France has more or less capped around 25 ° C.
The impression of a France upside down is a recurring phenomenon in the spring, where soft air masses are established in the north of the country rather than in the south. As Météo France explains, “Cold air pockets from the polar regions take advantage of the weakening of the jetstream to find a easier path to the south”, Whether on the Iberian peninsula or the south of France, causing a cooler, cloudy and unstable time, and leaving the sun for the north.
As a result, Paris was also, on Thursday, the hottest capital in Europe, with an inversion of temperatures also marked on the continent (a north warmer than the south). The maximums in Spain were 27 ° C, those in Germany of 28 ° C and in Italy of 29 ° C.
-Mercury even climbed up to 29.3 ° C in London, an absolute record in the United Kingdom for May 1, the previous one (27.4 ° C) dating from 1990 and measured in Scotland.
“In my childhood memories, reaching 30 ° C in June was already exceptional. In 2025, this threshold was crossed from May 1 in the Paris region. The precocity of these strong heat becomes more and more blatant in France ”, pointed out the agroclimatologist Serge Zaka on social networks. Faced with climatosceptic comments evoking a punctual event, the scientist supports his feeling by data: in Paris, in May, 2 % of the maximum daily temperatures exceeded 30 degrees between 1951 and 1980. Since 2000, it was 8 %. “Or four times more”, Pointe Serge Zaka. And this one reminds that at present, “75 % of days are above standards”.
Météo France data abound in this direction. Usually, the threshold of 30 ° C is reached in Paris around June 16. An increasingly early heat, marker of global warming: in France, the current average climate is at least 1.7 ° C warm than at the pre -industrial period. As a result, in the capital, according to current seasonal normal, the first 25 ° C of the year is recorded around April 19. In the 1970s, half a century ago, it was May 6.
Over the past 25 years, such an episode of early warmth, over the period at the end of April – in early May, only occurred four times. “Before 2000, we could still note higher temperatures punctually at this time of the year, but not on a series of four days”, underlines Météo France.
These exceptional heat is therefore not new, but warmer, and longer, due to global warming. For the climatologist, you must keep in mind the fact that the 30 ° C threshold will be reached earlier and earlier in the year. “The summer season is gradually lengthening in spring and fall”, she underlines. “Today, it is no longer the 30 ° C that mark the spirits, but the 40 ° C, Save Serge Zaka. The 30 ° C has become the standard “.
After these suffocating days, temperatures will abruptly drop this Saturday due to thunderstorms and showers. From Sunday, they will reach 20 ° C maximum in the south, and up to 15 ° C in the North. “It’s going to be the cold shower. But it is not extraordinary either, nuance Christine Berne. The big differences of Temperatures, we saw it quite recurrently, especially in this spring season and in the fall. ”
