![A camel is silhouetted against the setting sun in a desert in Morocco on 13 October 2019 [FADEL SENNA/AFP via Getty Images]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2019_10-17-sun-in-morocco.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1)
Several Moroccan governorates have registered the highest temperatures experienced in the country since 1925, local media reported yesterday.
The Moroccan Directorate General of Meteorology (DGM) said in a statement that the high temperature began “last Friday and continued until Monday.”
“The temperature in the Meknes province exceeded 46.5 degrees Celsius on Saturday 14 August, compared to 45.3 degrees on 9 August 1925,” the DGM said, noting that the rise in temperatures had exceeded the monthly average by “five to twelve degrees.”
On Monday, the Tetouan province registered a temperature of 42.2 degrees Celsius, compared to 42.0 degrees on the same day in 1976.
DGM’s media head, Al-Hussein Youabed, recently told Anadolu Agency that the heat wave was caused by the “movement of hot air masses from the Sahara Desert, especially from northern Mauritania and Mali towards the southern and interior regions of Morocco.”
“On 10 July, the country recorded a maximum temperature of 49.6 degrees in the Sidi Suleiman province, the highest since 1995,” Youabed pointed out.
Forest fires have been seen in neighbouring Algeria and in Tunisia over the past week, with the latter exacerbated by unusually high temperatures.