Large parts of Europe are bracing for swelteringly high temperatures this weekend, as experts warn that intense heat in spring is becoming the “new normal”.
Spain’s national meteorological agency AMET says the Iberian Peninsula is expected to experience a period of “exceptionally high temperatures for this time of year” over the Pentecost public holiday.
General maximum temperatures of 34°C in the main valleys are expected over the weekend, while the Guadiana and Guadalquivir valleys will see temperatures climb to a scorching 38°C.
On X (formerly Twitter), AMET says highs of 30°C are also expected along the Cantabrian coast, with higher temperatures of 34°C inland.
Tropical nights – where the temperature does not fall below 20°C – will hit Guadiana and Guadalquivir valleys, as well as Tagus, Ebro, and lower Duero valleys over the coming days.
More prolonged high temperatures would need to be reached to be categorised as an official heatwave. Still, the daytime and nighttime temperatures forecasted are typical of midsummer, not late May, AMET says.
The UK’s Met Office has also announced that temperatures in England will climb through the weekend, especially in the south, where 30°C is likely to be recorded on Saturday (23 May) and 32°C on Sunday (24 May).
Temperatures are forecast to peak on Monday (25 May), when southern England and the Midlands could be hit with an unusually hot 33°C.
“It is likely that the May and spring UK temperature records will be broken over the Bank Holiday weekend, with forecast temperatures surpassing the existing record of 32.8°C,” Met Office’s Steve Kocher says. “As well as it being hot, there will be lots of dry and sunny weather for much of the UK.”
In Germany, forecasters are expecting 30°C temperatures through the weekend, with the hottest day on Whit Monday.
“Widespread highs of 22-28°C are on the cards,” weather expert Dominik Jung says. “Along the Upper Rhine, in the Rhine-Main region and in places towards Brandenburg, peak values of up to 31°C are even possible."
The current Met Office forecast for Paris predicts highs of 33°C this weekend, continuing into next week, while Rome will see a slightly cooler average of 31°C. Over in Lisbon, temperatures will reach 31°C today, followed by 28°C on Saturday and 27°C on Sunday.
Are soaring spring temperatures the ‘new normal’?
Climate models estimate that June heatwaves in Europe are around 10 times more likely today than they were in pre-industrial conditions, and the same trajectory is becoming visible for May.
“Germany is a useful illustration: a 30°C day around Pentecost, once considered an oddity, has shifted from a rare occurrence in the 1980s to something the country now experiences regularly,” Ionna Vergini, founder of world weather forecast WFY24 tells Euronews Earth.
“That kind of shift in the underlying distribution is what ‘new normal’ actually means. It isn’t about one extreme event, it’s the temperature curve itself moving.”
Vergini warns that infrastructure, agriculture and public health systems are still “calibrated to the old calendar", meaning countries aren’t prepared for high temperatures so early on in the year.
“A 38°C day in southern Spain in mid-May lands on a country whose tourism, energy and hospital systems are not yet in summer mode.”
The Mediterranean basin (Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Southern France) remains the epicentre of this issue. Last year, these countries experienced a slew of deadly heatwaves, drought and wildfires that ravaged the continent.
However, increasing bouts of extreme heat have also impacted the usually cool nations, whose housing stock, transport networks and hospitals were never designed for heat.
“A 32°C afternoon in Helsinki disrupts more than a 40°C afternoon in Seville,” Vergini says.
“The UK fits the same pattern. May temperatures in the low 30s sit well above the historical norms for this point in spring, and the country’s building stock and rail network still struggle each time it happens.”
A major report released on 20 May by the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) warned that air-conditioning will soon be “unavoidable” to protect many citizens from unbearable summer heat, particularly in care homes, hospitals and schools.
How is Europe preparing itself for more intense heat?
Europe’s blistering temperatures are getting hard to ignore, with some experts describing intense heat as the “deadliest environmental hazard” of our time.
Researchers at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine looked at 854 European cities and found that climate change was responsible for 68 per cent of the 24,400 estimated heat deaths last summer, having raised temperatures by up to 3.6°C.
Human activities are the main driver of global warming, primarily the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.
The countries hardest hit by a single heatwave were Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Cyprus, where from 21 to 27 July an estimated 950 heat deaths occurred in temperatures up to 6°C above average. That is around 11 daily deaths per million people.
With warmer temperatures comes an increased risk of flooding. This is because for every 1℃ rise in air temperature, the atmosphere can hold around seven per cent more moisture, which can lead to more intense and heavy rainfall.
Last year’s deadly heat has sparked more conversation on how Europe can better handle climate change and its consequences.
“The countries that will fare best in the coming decade are not the ones with the most money – they are the ones that treat heat as a public health emergency rather than a weather story,” Vergini argues.
“Athens, Barcelona and Seville have moved in that direction. Most of the rest of Europe has not yet started.”
Climate shelters are spreading in Spain’s heat-scorched cities
Climate shelters are increasingly becoming “critical components” of urban strategies, as heat-related deaths in Europe continue to rise.
“As extreme heat events increase, adaptation measures in urban environments become
increasingly necessary,” Elvira Jiménez Navarro, a PhD student at the Open University of Catalonia’s Digital Transformation and Governance Research Centre (UOC-DIGIT), tells Euronews Earth.
“Municipal governments can have limited resources to ensure equitable and nearby access to climate shelters, so participatory governance and the inclusion of private spaces – while guaranteeing free and inclusive access – are essential.”
Spain is leading the race, with one of the world’s most advanced networks of climate shelters. Following last year’s record-breaking summer, which saw a 16-day heatwave drive temperatures up to a deadly 45°C, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced that a series of government buildings will also be used to offer members of the public refuge from intense heat.
The nationwide network builds upon schemes already established by regional governments, including in Catalonia, the Basque Country and Murcia. In Barcelona, for example, there are already 400 climate shelters available in public buildings such as libraries, museums, sports centres and shopping malls.
These spaces, which tend to be air-conditioned and equipped with seating and free water, are designed to protect people who lack the resources at home to cope with high temperatures – such as the elderly, babies and those with existing health issues.
It’s a life-saving initiative that is slowly gaining ground. Last month, for example, the General Council of Bucharest in Romania approved the establishment of a network of climate shelters to protect citizens from heatwaves and soaring temperatures.
Athens’ Chief Heat officer coordinates heat protection efforts in Greek capital
Cities are already hotter than surrounding areas due to the urban heat island effect, which is mainly caused by human-made materials like asphalt and concrete absorbing and trapping the sun’s heat.
By 2050, heatwaves will affect more than 3.5 billion people worldwide, with half of them living in urban centres. To address this danger, the US-based Climate Resilience Centre created and piloted the world’s first Chief Heat Officer (CHO) positions.
These officials are responsible for “unifying their city governments’ responses to extreme heat” and focus on accelerating existing heat protection efforts and initiating new work to reduce public risk.
Athens was the first European city to appoint a CHO, offering the role to Elissavet Bargianni in 2021, following in the footsteps of Miami-Dade County in Florida, US.
Bargianni, who is also head of Athens’ Resilience and Sustainability Department, has been working on updating Athens Climate Action Plan (2022) and participating in the EIB Natural Capital Financing Facility (NCFF) programme for the creation of four high-impact green and blue infrastructure city projects.
So far, Bargianni has carried out feasibility and landscape studies of various public spaces in Athens, introduced methodology for new tree avenues, and initiated GIS mapping and tree inventory for the National Garden and the city.
“Single-point accountability for heat planning is proving more effective than spreading the responsibility across half a dozen municipal departments,” Vergini says.
Heat stress test prepares Paris for a 50°C future
While the idea of 50°C temperatures may seem dystopian, Europe has already recorded a scorching 48.8°C in Sicily in 2021.
Back in 2023, the city of Paris organised the ‘Paris at 50°C’ crisis exercise in two Paris arrondissements, to prepare the city for potential extreme heatwaves.
The initiative brought together urban planners, health experts, scientists and public authorities to assess vulnerabilities across key sectors including housing, healthcare, energy and public space.
Part of the initiative saw some 70 children file into a cool, dark tunnel that manages to maintain a comfortable 18°C. Once underground, children were asked to play out the effects of extreme temperatures that may soon become an ordinary part of life.
According to reports, some pretended to be poisoned by food that had spoiled during a power outage, while others faked the effects of carbon monoxide leaking from a faulty generator.
Red Cross workers then acted out who they would send to hospitals first, with firefighters, city officials and teachers all simulating the chaos that a heatwave of “unprecedented duration” might force them to confront.
A report on the ‘Paris at 50°C’ exercise found that extreme heat poses a serious threat to public health, particularly for vulnerable populations such as the elderly, children, outdoor workers and those on low incomes. Infrastructure such as metro systems and rail lines could also face major disruption from intense heat.
The report proposes turning Paris into an “oasis city” by increasing vegetation, creating shaded public spaces, reducing heat-retaining surfaces, developing cooling islands, and adapting schools and public facilities to extreme heat conditions.
Heat Risk Commission aims to save lives in the UK as temperatures spike
In April, the UK unveiled a new National Heat Risk Commission to investigate how to improve efforts across the country to tackle the “wide-ranging impacts” of high temperatures.
Based at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the commission will be independent of government but will offer recommendations about how government at national and local level can reduce the threat of rising temperatures to British lives.
“This Commission will provide the roadmap to ensure the UK is resilient to high temperatures without compromising our economic or climate goals,” says Emma Howard Boyd CBE, Chair of the Heat Risk Commission and Professor in Practice at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
“The Government must make adapting to extreme heat a priority or additional lives will be lost”.
As well as recommending that policymakers prioritise air conditioning and other cooling technologies in schools and hospitals, the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) report on ‘A Well-Adapted UK’ urged the introduction of maximum working temperature rules, arguing that the country was “built for a climate that no longer exists today”.
