Western Europe posts its hottest June-July on record
The heat intensified drought, lowered the Seine, Rhine and Danube, and disrupted transport, irrigation and power output.
Western Europe experienced its hottest June-July period on record, with an average temperature of 21.62 degrees Celsius, surpassing the 2022 record, the European Union climate service Copernicus said on 10 August. Copernicus said extreme heat lasted throughout the summer and was reinforced by soil conditions that were much drier than in July 2022, when the region was hit by severe drought. Very dry conditions were recorded in France, Spain, Austria, Hungary, England, Ireland, and parts of Iceland. The flow of the Seine, Rhine and Danube rivers also fell unusually low, hitting transport, irrigation and energy production in several countries. Samantha Burgess of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts said heat and drought are now increasingly reinforcing each other because of climate change, while major wildfires have also spread in France and Spain.