Scorching heatwaves pushed temperatures more than 3°C above the norm across the western part of the continent, contributing to thousands of excess deaths and priming the landscape for devastating wildfires, according to the EU’s Copernicus monitoring service.
Continent on fire
Western Europe has just sweltered through its hottest June in recorded history, obliterating a temperature record set only a year earlier. Data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service revealed on Thursday that the average temperature in the region soared to 20.74°C, a staggering 3.05°C above the 1991–2020 baseline for the month. This shattered the previous high set in 2025, marking a rapid escalation in extreme heat events.
The second half of the month proved particularly lethal as a persistent heat dome settled over several nations. Thermometers hit unprecedented highs, triggering a public health crisis. According to reports, excess mortality linked to the heat — including fatal cardiac events — has surpassed 4,000 people across the region.
Dry earth and raging flames
The blistering heat was compounded by a severe lack of rainfall, plunging large swathes of the continent into drought conditions significantly drier than the seasonal average. The tinder-dry landscape proved catastrophic on the Iberian Peninsula and in Southern France, where emergency services battled intense early-season wildfires.
Across the whole European continent, the average temperature reached 19.14°C, making it the second-warmest June on record behind 2019. Samantha Burgess, a climate scientist and deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, offered a stark assessment of the figures, stating: “June 2026 has demonstrated just how profoundly our climate is changing.”
Global fever pitch
The relentless heat was not confined to Europe. Global average temperatures for June climbed to 16.54°C, ranking it the second hottest globally, narrowly trailing the record set in June 2024. More significantly, this figure sits a troubling 1.39°C above the estimated pre-industrial average for the period between 1850 and 1900.
Experts attribute the global spike partly to the return of the naturally occurring El Niño phenomenon in the equatorial Pacific, which acts as a planetary thermostat. However, scientists warn that this warming layer is being added to an already super-heated background climate.
The United Nations has forecast that the current El Niño episode is expected to reach “high intensity” between July and September, raising the spectre of further deadly and destructive extreme weather events around the globe in the coming months.
