(14 Aug 2021) Spain endured its hottest day of the year Saturday, with temperatures topping 46 degrees Celsius (115 F), while authorities in Italy expanded the number of cities on red alert for health risks to 16 as a heat wave engulfed Southern Europe.
Provisional data showed that Spain matched its all-time high temperature of 46.9 degrees Celsius (116.42 Fahrenheit) in Montoro, Cordobia, in the southern region of Andalusia. If confirmed, that matches the country's heat record, set in the same city in July 2017.
Europe's overall heat record came in 1977 when Athens hit 48.0 Celsius (118.4 F).
In Granada in southern Spain, few people ventured out as the temperature reached 40 degrees Celsius (104F) by midday.
Those braving the outdoors sought shade and stopped to take photos of public thermometers displaying the rocketing temperature.
Dominic Royé, a climate scientist at the University of Santiago de Compostela, said the hot air from the Sahara that had brought days of hot weather and wildfires which have continued to burn in Mediterranean countries.
With nighttime temperatures forecast to exceed 25 degrees Celsius (77 F) in much of Spain, Royé said he is worried about residents who cannot afford home air conditioning and other vulnerable people.
He also cautioned that the Iberian peninsula would receive ever longer and more extreme heatwaves, with catastrophic long-term effects.
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