By Athena Papakosta

“Charos” is coming. No, to get us. A little calm but, if we are not careful, a heatstroke will treat us.

To explain. Yes, Charos, according to ancient Greek mythology, was the boatman who took the souls of the dead to Hades, but this week we will talk a lot about him as the new “Cerberus”, that is, the new heat wave that will make the mercury to hit red again across southern Europe.

So according to the meteorologists, Greece, Italy, Spain and all the Mediterranean countries are expected to start recording new record temperatures from tomorrow, Tuesday.

As the experts report, it is possible that the thermometer will even exceed 48.8 degrees Celsius in some areas – a temperature that was recorded in Sicily in August 2021. More specifically, the European Space Agency, ESA, has already announced that the temperatures expected this week in Europe will be the warmest on record on the Old Continent.

Yesterday, Sunday, Italy was “melting” due to high temperatures and high levels of humidity with meteorologists in the country expecting today, Monday, to further worsen the already unbearable situation with the temperature in Sardinia expected to reach 47 degrees Celsius while , in Puglia and Sicily their 45 and 46 degrees.

As for tourist-packed Rome, temperatures are expected to exceed 42 degrees Celsius tomorrow, Tuesday, while the Italian capital remains on red alert. At the same time, a further 15 Italian cities, including Florence, Bologna, Bari, Cagliari and Palermo, are also in “red” with Italy’s health ministry warning that the heat is such that it poses a threat to the whole population.

In Spain, at least 4,000 people had been evacuated by midday Sunday due to a huge fire on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands. The president of the region, Fernando Clavijo, said that “the fire spread quickly” due to “strong winds, climatic conditions and a heat wave” in the region.

Already, according to the World Meteorological Organization, the planet experienced its hottest week in early July and in Europe alone, according to a public health survey, at least 61,000 people will die in 2022 due to high temperatures. As the scientists explain, the extreme conditions brought by the high temperatures are due to the man-made climate crisis and the phenomena will become more intense, more frequent, while they will last longer as time goes on.

According to Giulio Betti, a meteorologist and climate expert who spoke to the British BBC, “summers in Europe have become much, much hotter in recent years. What should worry us more is that summers without intense and prolonged heat waves simply do not exist anymore. “Normal” summers are now a rare event.”

Turkey and the countries of the Balkans are also in the grip of a heatwave, while the United States of America is also measuring its climatic endurance with more than 100 million citizens spending their weekend on red alert due to the high temperatures which, however, are expected to persist and this week.