The first heatwave of the summer, with temperatures exceeding 42 degrees, has triggered alerts in southern Europe. A total of 84 departments in France have activated the "orange alert", as well as several autonomous communities in Spain, two-thirds of the surface area of Portugal, and at least twenty cities in Italy, from Milan to Palermo, while Greece has declared a state of emergency on the island of Chios due to the fires.
The situation is expected to last until Wednesday due to the African-origin anticyclone anchored in the southern part of the continent, with the accumulation of hot air pushed down by the high atmospheric pressure (a phenomenon known as a "heat dome" and increasingly common in Europe).
In Spain, the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) has warned that "the transition from June to July will take place with very high temperatures, both during the day and at night", with maximum temperatures of 42 to 45 degrees and nighttime lows from 25 to 27 in cities like Seville and Cadiz. In El Granado, Huelva, a temperature of 46 degrees has been recorded in recent days, which could be the historical maximum in June in our country if confirmed.
France is experiencing temperatures 10 to 15 degrees above the seasonal average, with 90% of the territory under the effects of the heatwave and cities like Orleans, Nice, and Marseille offering free access to air-conditioned museums or urging citizens to seek refuge in parks. In Paris, the most violent storm in decades this week caused two deaths and significant material damage.
Meanwhile, the portal La Chaine Météo forecasted that Monday could be the day when temperature records are broken in several parts of the country. The newspaper Le Figaro published this week the projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), warning that some areas of France could experience up to 100 "tropical" nights per year in a scenario of a global temperature increase of 2 °C by 2050.
In Lisbon, temperatures reached 42 degrees over the weekend. In Italy, temperatures close to 40 degrees were recorded in Naples and Palermo, with the heatwave extending to Venice and as a backdrop to the wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez. In Greece, fires forced the evacuation of large areas around Athens and the closure of the road between the capital and Cape Sounion, where the Temple of Poseidon, one of the country's main tourist attractions, is located.
According to data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service, Europe is warming at a rate that is double the global average. 2024 was the second warmest year ever recorded on the continent, with temperatures 1.2 degrees higher than the average for the period between 1991-2020 and almost 2.6 degrees above the pre-industrial era. March 2025 set another seasonal record on the continent.