Heat wave grips Europe: Barcelona records hottest June in over 100 years

Barcelona recorded its hottest month of June since records started over a century ago, Spain’s national weather service said on Tuesday as Europe remained in the grip of the first major heat wave this summer.

The Fabra Observatory, located on a hill overlooking Barcelona, reported an average temperature of 26 degrees Celsius (78 degrees Fahrenheit), breaking records since 1914. The previous hottest average for June was 25.6 C in 2003.

The same weather station said that a single-day high of 37.9 C (100 F) for June was recorded Monday, June 30.

Barcelona is usually spared the worst heat in Spain, thanks to its location between hills and the Mediterranean in Spain’s northeastern corner. But most of the country has been gripped by the first heat wave of the year.

Health warnings were in effect Tuesday in several European Union countries even as conditions began to improve in some parts of the region.

Punishing temperatures were forecast to reach 40 C (104 F) in Paris and to stay unusually high in Belgium and the Netherlands.

In contrast, temperatures were falling in Portugal, where no red heat warnings were issued.

Spain saw a new high mark for June established on Saturday when 46 C (114F) was recorded in the southern province of Huelva, while Sunday’s national average of 28 C (82F) set a record for a high temperature for June 29 since records were started in 1950.

“We are seeing these temperatures because we are experiencing a very intense heat wave that has come early in the summer and that is clearly linked to global warming,” Ramón Pascual, the regional delegate for Spain’s weather service in Barcelona, told The Associated Press yesterday.