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Western Europe suffers hottest summer start on record as heatwaves intensify. Western Europe recorded its hottest June and July on record in 2026, as successive heatwaves, drought and wildfires continued to affect the region. Copernicus said the average temperature across western Europe for the two-month period reached 21.62°C, surpassing the previous record set in 2022. Nearly 120 million Europeans lived in areas where July was the hottest ever recorded, with the worst conditions concentrated in southern Britain, western France and northern and eastern Spain. France recorded average temperatures 3.8°C above the 1991-2020 normal, while both France and Spain experienced record levels of drought that helped fuel devastating wildfires. A megafire in France's Gironde department burned almost 42,000 hectares and forced more than 220,000 people to evacuate, while Spain's largest wildfire in recent history scorched nearly 44,000 hectares in Ávila province. The extreme conditions also caused river levels to fall sharply across Europe, disrupting transport, irrigation and energy production along waterways including the Seine, Rhine and Danube. Scientists say the frequency of extreme heat has increased dramatically because of climate change, while 2026 could still challenge 2024 for the title of the hottest year ever recorded.
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