The catastrophic wildfires tearing across Europe have reached a scale so extreme that they are now generating their own weather systems, raising serious alarm among authorities and meteorologists tracking the crisis.
The fires have grown to such an enormous size that the intense heat and smoke they produce are altering atmospheric conditions in their immediate surroundings — a phenomenon that can make the blazes even harder to predict and control.
Making matters significantly worse, an approaching heatwave is forecast to intensify what is already being described as an unprecedented situation across the continent. The combination of self-generated weather patterns and rising temperatures is expected to compound the danger facing affected regions in the days ahead.
