Western Europe Records Hottest June as Heatwaves Surge
Copernicus said average temperatures reached 20.74 degrees Celsius as the heatwave closed schools, disrupted power and fueled wildfires across Europe.
- On Thursday, the Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that Western Europe experienced its hottest June on record, averaging a little over 69 degrees Fahrenheit, or nearly 5.5 degrees above average.
- Samantha Burgess, a climate expert at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, said June's conditions "underscored how profoundly the climate is changing," with a warming climate system accumulating heat and the Pacific Ocean El Niño cycle influencing global weather patterns.
- The heat resulted in more than 1,300 deaths across Europe, with France recording about 1,000 excess deaths mainly in elderly residents. Wildfires in southern France burned through more than 11,000 acres as of Monday, forcing roughly 10,000 evacuations.
- Kurt Shickman of the World Resources Institute warned that high nighttime temperatures prevent bodily recovery, stating "the body isn't able to recover sufficiently." Adaptation measures could have reduced heat-related deaths by as much as 75 percent.
- According to the World Weather Attribution initiative, climate change is driving a "new, dangerous norm" that would have been virtually impossible 50 years ago, with the current El Niño potentially intensifying extreme weather through spring 2027.
82 Articles
82 Articles
Last month was the hottest June ever recorded in Western Europe. This can be deduced from the latest temperature data from the European climate agency Copernicus. In various countries, heat record after heat record was broken, and the western Mediterranean and the waters along the Atlantic coast also experienced a severe marine heatwave that is still ongoing. The average temperature in Western Europe last month was 20.74 degrees Celsius. The di…
This year, June in Western Europe was the hottest on record, with scorching heatwaves hitting the continent and such waves becoming more frequent and intense, the European Union's (EU) climate change monitoring agency said.
Two heat waves and maximum sea temperatures: June 2026 has already broken several records. Copernicus, the EU's climate service, warns of far-reaching consequences.
Temperature records in Germany are broken several times during the heat wave at the end of June. The average values for Western Europe also show new maximum values.
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