Barcelona Records Hottest June

Barcelona recorded its hottest June in over a century as a strong heatwave strikes Europe.

France, Spain, Turkey, Greece, and Portugal are among the most impacted countries of the latest heatwave. 

On Tuesday, the summit of Paris’ Eiffel Tower was closed to visitors and hundreds of French schools shut on Tuesday.

Health warnings remained in effect in several European countries. The temperatures surpassed 40 degrees Celsius in Paris and stayed high in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Samantha Burgess of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts said that hot weather “is exposing millions of Europeans to high heat stress” with temperatures in June more typical of July and August. 

This June is likely to be among the five hottest on record, it said.

Barcelona's Fabra Observatory reported an average temperature for last month of 26 C (78 F), breaking records since books were started in 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.

“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, a delegate for Spain’s weather service in Barcelona, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.