Summer is here and with it comes sun, sweat and intense heat. Europe is no stranger to the annual tradition, but this year the heat wave came early and hard, with temperatures hitting highs not seen in decades.
France has faced the brunt of the heat wave, with at least 45 deaths related to the heat, with most of those deaths attributed to drownings. French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu called the heat wave “an episode of exceptional intensity” and said temperatures were breaking records “every day and night,” The Washington Post reported.
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The government said it’s planning a multitude of weather scenarios, including the possibility that the humid, sticky weather sticks around into July.
According to The Post, less than 1% of the planet was expected to be hotter than the hottest regions in France on Tuesday. On Monday, temperatures in some areas of France exceeded 112 degrees Fahrenheit.
The heat wave is expected to grow and move into the United Kingdom, where the country’s weather office has issued its highest-level warning for extreme heat on Wednesday and Thursday. It is also moving east across the rest of Europe, where about 115 million people can expect temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Why so many deaths?
Of the 45 deaths in France related to the extreme weather, 40 of those were from drowning. The U.K.’s weather agency warned about the potential dangers of people cooling off in the waters off the coast.
Samantha Hughes, the U.K.’s national water safety partner at the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, said that while the weather is warm, the waters are still frigid. She said that jumping into the water could “lead to cold water shock, causing a sudden increase in breathing and heart rate, which may trigger panic.”
Europe has seen hundreds of thousands of deaths over the last four years related to heat, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO said many of those deaths were preventable. To reduce these avoidable fatalities, the agency urged nations to adopt heat-health initiatives.
“They enable cities and countries to anticipate, prepare for and respond to extreme heat in a coordinated way,” the WHO said. “This is why WHO recommends countries, regions and cities to use this Guidance to develop, implement and improve their plans.”
Why is it so hot?
Scientists overwhelmingly say that human-caused climate change is worsening the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness worldwide, especially in southeastern Europe. Besides health impacts, the higher temperatures in the region can lead to more wildfires, as Greece saw in 2024.
The United Nations’ climate agency projects that climate change will continue to exacerbate extreme weather and that the next five years will break even more heat records.
Europe remains the world’s fastest-warming continent, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Temperatures in Europe have increased twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s.
Europeans will have to endure the heat for longer, as weather models predict another heat dome developing in Western Europe, slated for early July. According to The Post, a large mass of cold ocean water in the North Atlantic may be responsible for the increased rate of extreme heat. This causes the jet stream to buckle, creating a pathway for heat to migrate from Africa into Europe.
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