Spain breaks heat records: temperatures above 40 degrees

Records are currently being broken in heat in Spain. It’s been quite hot for a while, but right now it’s warmer in some places than it has ever been in May. In Seville, mercury passed 41 degrees, beating the old temperature record of 39 degrees. And in Jaén in Andalusia, 40.3 °C was measured, 16 °C above the normal temperature for that time of year. The rest of the island was about 7 degrees higher than normal.

The Spanish government launched the heating plan on Thursday, advising residents to drink plenty of water and stay in the shade as much as possible. “May is very hot, much hotter than usual,” said Ruben del Campo, a spokesman for the Spanish meteorological institute “AEMET”. In many parts of the country, the temperature will never drop below 20 degrees at night. “In 2015, we also had an exceptionally warm May that broke records. It seemed then that such a situation would never arise again. And that was only seven years ago….” Although we will have to wait until the end of the month to see if this is the warmest May of the century.

Meteo France said, on Thursday, that the record temperature of spring in France is offset by 38 consecutive days with temperatures above seasonal norms. The previous record was dated April-May 2007.

The increase in the number of heat waves in Europe, according to scientists, is due to global warming. Greenhouse gas emissions increase the strength, duration, and frequency of heat waves.