Europe's deadliest June on record: heat kills 4,700

Western Europe endured its hottest June on record last month, as a deadly heat wave gripped the region.

Temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius triggered thousands of excess deaths, while wildfires and drought spread across the continent. Experts warned the heat wave was not a mere weather anomaly but a clear manifestation of climate change.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the EU's climate monitoring agency, released its monthly report Thursday, showing western Europe's average temperature last month reached 20.74 degrees Celsius — more than 3 degrees above the 30-year average for 1991–2020 and the highest June temperature ever recorded for the region.

The previous record for western Europe's average June temperature was 20.49 degrees, set last year. Records have now fallen in two consecutive Junes, prompting analysts to ask whether extreme June heat is becoming the new normal for western Europe.

C3S defines western Europe as the landmass between 37 and 55 degrees north latitude and between 11 degrees west and 15 degrees east longitude, encompassing Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and parts of Austria.

Much of western Europe sweltered through more than a week of extreme heat from June 20 to June 28, with temperatures soaring past 40 degrees Celsius across France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

The heat disrupted power supply and forced schools with inadequate cooling facilities to close. It was also identified as a primary driver of wildfires that spread across Spain and France and of worsening drought conditions during the period.

The death toll mounted rapidly. Excess deaths in France, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands combined reached 4,700 during last month's heat wave. The total is estimated to be far higher when other western European countries are included.

Samantha Burgess, strategic director at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), warned that last month "starkly illustrated how fundamentally the Earth's climate is changing." She added that heat waves are growing more intense, oceans are warming steadily, and the risks facing people, ecosystems and infrastructure across Europe and beyond are increasing.

C3S also said global sea surface temperatures last month hit their highest level for any June on record, attributing the trend in part to a strong El Niño pattern developing in the Pacific.

However, subsequent research confirmed that El Niño played little role in Europe's heat wave last month, while climate change clearly made it worse.