Climate Change - The European Heatwave of June 2019

An unusually early and exceptionally intense heatwave set new temperature records in Europe.
Map of anomalies in temperature (°C) estimated from ERA5 25-29 June 2019. ECMWF, Copernicus Climate Change Service).

The month of June was the hottest on record for the continent, with the average temperature 2° Celsius above normal.


"Every heatwave occurring in Europe today is made more likely and more intense by human-induced climate change," said a study published by scientists at World Weather Attribution .

Currently such an event is estimated to occur with a return period of 30 years, but similarly-frequent heatwaves would have likely been about 4 ºC cooler a century ago. 

In other words, a heatwave of this intensity is occurring at least 10 times more frequently today than a century ago.

The hottest summers in Europe in the last 500 years have all come in the last 17 years.

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