🔥 Welcome to the warm-up act

Hey folks! Europe’s heating up again. Not in a lazy summer holiday way, but in a “who turned the thermostat to apocalypse” sort of way. Let’s take a look at what’s going on and where June now sits in the growing pile of heat records.

In June 2025, not one but two heatwaves swept across western Europe, first peaking around the 20th, then again a week later. Temperatures hit 46°C in southern Spain. France placed 84 departments on orange alert, with several upgraded to red—a level technically described as “are you kidding me” by meteorologists. France and the Benelux were up to 14°C above their seasonal average. Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Germany, and Belgium also issued heat alerts.

June is on track to be one of the five hottest ever, because of course it is. But the real surprise is the timing:

“The temperatures observed recently are more typical of July and August and tend to only happen a few times each summer,” said Dr Samantha Burgess from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. “We saw it again in 2024, the warmest year on record. Climate change is making heatwaves more frequent, more intense, and impacting larger geographical areas.”

By the way, May 2025 was the second-warmest globally, just 0.12°C behind last year’s record. And England just had its warmest June on record. The UK as a whole came in the second-hottest since records began in 1884. It followed a spring that was already the warmest and sunniest ever recorded. As the climate keeps shifting, the UK is set for more frequent and intense heatwaves. A new Met Office study warns they’ll likely get longer and hotter, with the risk of temperatures topping 40°C rising fast.

At this rate, sunscreen may soon qualify as national infrastructure.

And that’s it for today! Thanks for reading! If you enjoy the newsletter, share it with a friend—or a dozen. And if you really enjoyed it, consider upgrading to a paid subscription—it helps support my work and means a lot.

Elia Kabanov is a science writer covering the past, present and future of technology (@metkere)

Cover art: Elia Kabanov feat. DALL-E. Video: C3S/ECMWF.