Travel latest: Fires erupt amid 40C European heatwave – will your holiday be impacted?
UK weather: Extreme heatwave events to increase says professor
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Some Brits can go on holidays to Europe and beyond now, thanks to recent changes to the Government’s list system. They can now set foot back in amber listed countries, provided they have both of their Covid vaccines. But a deadly heatwave at the height of summer may keep people away from some of the sunniest destinations.
Will Europe’s heatwave affect travel?
Heatwaves have become commonplace across Europe lately, with temperatures spiking to uncomfortable highs.
Even England briefly shed its traditional summer bluster and made way for 32C highs.
A different picture has developed across the English Channel, where temperatures have increased by nearly 10C.
A freak heatwave is currently beating down on southeast Europe, prompting a host of deadly conditions.
A plume of heat from Africa has driven temperatures upwards across the area, in an event meteorologists have dubbed the most severe since the 1980s.
They have recorded highs of 40C in several areas, popular tourist destinations among them.
Towns in both Greece and Turkey are among those currently engulfed in flames.
Jan Schenk, head of The Weather Channel in Germany, dubbed the heatwave “catastrophic”.
Speaking on the weekend, he said the heat could break temperature records in “all of Europe”, with up to 50C possible.
Mr Schenk added a “Sirocco” wind from the Sahara would ultimately mingle with Mediterranean Europe.
The heat it brings could eventually make locations such as Greece appear almost indistinguishable from the African desert.
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None of the affected countries have effected a national travel ban, but they have limited movement.
In Turkey, the weather has already proven deadly, as a married couple and an 82-year-old man died in local wildfires.
Another 25-year-old volunteer died in a motorcycle crash while transporting water to firefighters attending the blazes.
Neighbouring countries, Greece and Russia among them, have offered emergency assistance.
Greek authorities urged members of the public not to undertake unnecessary journeys last Friday when temperatures reached 40C.
Theodoris Kolydas, director of Greece’s National Meteorological Service, said people must take care amid the “dangerous weather phenomenon.”
Capital Athens is home to the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe.
The city set records in 1977 when a weather system spiked local temperatures to 48C.
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