By Jakub Krupa
Health and environmental alerts issued with high temperatures expected in France, Italy, Portugal and Spain
Spain on high heat alert after provisional June temperature record of 46C – Sam Jones
in Madrid
Spain remains on high heat alert – especially after a provisional June temperature record of 46C (114.8F) was set on Saturday afternoon in El Granado in the Andalucían province of Huelva. The highest temperature previously recorded for June was the 45.2C logged in Seville in 1965.
A street thermometer reads 44 degrees Celsius during a heatwave in Sevilla, Spain. Photograph: David Arjona/EPA
The heatwave, which is forecast to last until Thursday, could see temperatures in parts of the country reach 42C on Monday.
Spain’s state meteorological office, Aemet, and its health ministry have warned people to take extra care in the heat.
“We are expecting abnormally high and persistent temperatures, during both day and night, that could pose a risk to vulnerable or exposed people,” Aemet said in a statement on Saturday.
The health ministry, meanwhile, has urged people to monitor weather alerts, to stay hydrated and out of the sun, and to check on those who may be at risk.
“Remember that while the heat affects us all, it affects different people in different ways,” it said.
“Take special care if you have a risk factor – these categories include: people aged over 65 and under four; pregnant women; people with chronic illnesses, and those in situations of loneliness or socioeconomic vulnerability.”
Spain recorded its highest ever temperature in August 2021, when the mercury in the Andalucían town of Montoro, near Córdoba, reached 47.4C.
A 2022 Aemet study found that the arrival of 30C temperatures across Spain and the Balearic islands had come an average of 20 to 40 days earlier over the past 71 years. “The summer is eating up the spring,” Aemet’s spokesperson Rubén del Campo told El País at the time.
“What’s happening fits perfectly with a situation where you have a warmer planet,” he said, adding that the rise in temperatures was a “direct and palpable [consequence] of climate change … The climate in Spain isn’t the one we used to know. It’s got more extreme.”
Germany bracing for heatwave later this week – Deborah Cole in Berlin
Germany is bracing for its own heatwave this week, with temperatures threatening to reach 40 degrees in some areas by Wednesday. The northern region from Hanover to Brunswick could be hardest hit, forecasters said.
A person runs, with the Berlin television tower and cathedral in the background, in the early morning in Berlin, Germany. Photograph: Christoph Soeder/AP
In Brandenburg state surrounding Berlin, the government has urged employers to take the danger to their staff into account.
“Companies are bound by heat protection rules at the workplace,” regional health minister Britta Müller said, including maintaining an acceptable temperature indoors and guarding against excessive sun exposure.
The heat and dry weather are also stoking the risk of forest fires, the German Weather Service said, with the south-western state of Baden-Württemberg most at risk, as well as northern Bavaria and parts of Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.
Many cities and regions have imposed limits on how much water can be taken from rivers, lakes and wells, with some areas imposing a ban on watering plants during the day. Residents are also being encouraged to save water where possible.
A cooler front followed by summer storms should douse the heat by the end of the week but could bring heavy rain and strong winds.
News outlet Der Spiegel said that given the extreme weather linked by scientists to climate change, it was notable that Friedrich Merz’s nearly two-month-old government is “not exactly standing out with an ambitious climate policy.”
“It is puzzling to see the new economy minister, Katherina Reiche, in recent days raising doubts about the legally binding aim of climate neutrality in Germany by 2045,” it said.
Reiche last week criticised fixed government targets for carbon dioxide emissions reductions by 2030 and 2035 as “too rigid” and suggested pushing back Germany’s climate neutrality goal by five years to 2050, the EU’s chosen date.
Intense heatwave tightens its grip in Italy with pressure on hospitals – Angela Giuffrida in Rome
Hospital emergency units across Italy are under pressure as an intense heatwave tightens its grip.
A girl refreshes herself at a fountain on a hot summer day in Rome near the Vatican. Photograph: Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images
Admissions were up by 20 percent in some of the hottest regions, for example Tuscany, with the patients being mostly elderly people and suffering from dehydration.
The heatwave is poised to endure for at least the next 10 days, with temperatures peaking at 42C in areas of the country’s south and islands.
Italy’s health ministry on Sunday placed 21 out of 27 cities on the highest heat alert, including Rome, Milan and Naples. People have been advised not to venture outside between 11am and 6pm.
Some regions, including Lazio, Umbria, Tuscany, Calabria and Puglia, are planning to ban outdoor working during the hottest hours of the day.
Wildfires have also been reported in Lazio, Sicilia, Campania and especially Sardinia amid the heat and winds, with 24 occurring on the island within a few hours.
Almost entire mainland France on ‘unprecedented’ heat alert – Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
In France — where heatwave alerts often centre on specific areas — for the first time in history, almost the entire mainland France was on alert.
People relax on the grass at Place des Vosges during a heatwave in Paris, France. Photograph: Adnan Farzat/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
“This is unprecedented,” said Agnes Pannier-Runacher, France’s ecology transition minister as a record 84 of the nation’s 96 mainland departments were placed on the second-highest “orange” heat alert.
Only a small sliver of the northern coast in Brittany and part of Normandy were not placed on alert.
In some areas, temperatures were expected to exceed 40 degrees on Monday and Tuesday, also creating drought warnings in 25 areas.
The government asked businesses to adapt staff hours to protect workers from the heat. A total of 200 public schools across France were to be partially or totally closed on Monday and Tuesday.
On the A86 motorway outside Paris, road speed limits were placed at 20km an hour to reduce pollution.
Firefighters were also on alert.
The first major fire of the summer broke out in the Corbières areas of Aude in the south-west at the weekend, believed to have been caused by a barbecue being transported in a trailer behind a car which had not been completely put out and still contained hot ash.
Some 400 hectares burned and more than 100 people were evacuated from the area as a precaution. The fire was under control on Monday morning.