Paris, 30 September 2023 (dpa) — France has recorded its highest September temperatures since weather records began in 1900.

According to preliminary values, September this year was 3.6 degrees hotter than the average of the years 1991 to 2020, with an average temperature of 21.5 degrees Celsius, the weather service Météo France said on Friday.

In some places, temperatures were even more than 4 degrees higher than the long-term average. September was almost as warm in France this year as it was in June.

At the beginning of the month, there was a heat wave with temperatures of over 30 degrees in large parts of the country.

And at the end of the month, temperatures in France will rise again, according to forecasts. In the southern half of the country temperatures will climb to more than 30 degrees.

In Germany, too, September was the warmest since measurements began – in this case in 1881, the German Weather Service (DWD) reported on Friday.

The average temperature was 17.2 degrees. That is 3.4 degrees above the value of the reference period 1961 to 2020.