A particularly intense heat peak is expected in Aude and Hérault, according to Météo-France forecasts.
In Montpellier, the thermometer should display a maximum of 42 ° C on Saturday afternoon while Cherbourg – in green like the rest of Normandy – will benefit from milder weather with maximum temperatures between 22 ° C and 24 ° C.
This is the second scorching episode since the start of summer and the 51st in France since 1947, these phenomena being made more frequent and more intense by climate change.
The Bouches-du-Rhône department will remain on orange heat wave at least until Sunday with a slight increase in maximum temperatures on Saturday from 37 ° C to 39 ° C inside the land and from 34 ° C to 36 ° C on the coast.
The scorching episode in the department is accompanied by ozone air pollution forcing the maintenance of differentiated traffic in Marseille.
The risk of fire will also be high in the coming days in the south and the center-west due to drought and winds, particularly in Aude, the Vaucluse and the Drôme who will go into red vigilance for the danger of fires, announced Météo-France.
In the Aude where gusts of wind up to 45km/h are expected on Saturday, 330 firefighters are still mobilized on the exceptional fire which has traveled 16,000 hectares and is still not extinguished with a risk of recovery accentuated by strong heat.
The Vaucluse prefecture prohibited access to a dozen mountain ranges on Saturday.
Météo-France also placed three departments of the fringe is from France as well as Corse-du-Sud in yellow vigilance for thunderstorms on Saturday.
Accalie Saturday night
A woman is expanded in the Paris metro on August 13, 2025, in the middle of a heat wave
© / afp.com/Dimitar DILKOFF
The heat wave will last until the end of the day before regressing from the North and the West on Sunday and especially Monday. New thunderstorms, early next week, should lower temperatures according to Météo France and put an end to this long scorching episode.
The forecasters expect an end of orange vigilance on Saturday evening for all the departments of Auvergne, Limousin, Burgundy-Franche-Comté, Center-Val-de-Loire, as well as for Loire, Ain, Lozère, Aveyron, Deux-Sèvres and Vienne.
Saturday at 6:00 am, 12 departments, mainly northeast, were already replaced in yellow vigilance, said Météo-France in its latest bulletin. The Institute anticipates a wider decline on Sunday, especially in the center, with 18 additional downgraded departments.
The heat wave started on August 8 in France. First confined to the south, with particularly high temperatures on the Mediterranean South, it reached an exceptional level between Monday and Wednesday in the southwest to the center-east, where many records were broken.
A man uses water to a Toulouse fountain on August 15, 2025
© / afp.com/Ed JONES
In France, 266 weather stations recorded at least once a temperature of 40 ° C or more between August 9 and 12, 2025 included. More than all the second half of the 20th century (235).
The heat wave also affects a large part of southern Europe with on the front line Spain, which will record its fourteenth consecutive day of heat wave on Saturday.
Several cities will still experience temperature peaks that may exceed 40 degrees, said the National Meteorological Agency AEMET, warning against the risk of fires very high or extreme in most of the country (…) until Monday included.
Spain has recorded three deaths in these fires, including two young volunteers who have perished while trying to extinguish the flames in Castile-et-Leon (northwest) where a dozen lights remain very active.
In Portugal, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa announced on Friday evening The death of the former mayor of Guarda (east) Carlos Dâmaso, victim of a fire he was fighting in his commune.