Portugal Breaks May Heat Record as Unseasonal Blast Engulfs Western Europe
Record temperatures in Portugal, France and Italy prompt health alerts, disrupt public events, and underline a broader pattern of climate instability across the continent.
Portugal set a new national record for the month of May, with the central town of Mora registering 40.3C on Wednesday, surpassing the previous high of 40C recorded in 2001. The milestone, reported by local meteorological agencies and confirmed by international monitoring, came as a dome of hot air settled over western Europe, pushing temperatures far above seasonal norms from the Iberian peninsula to the Rhine.
In France, the capital endured its eighth consecutive day above 30C on Thursday, while the mercury climbed to 37.6C in Narbonne and 37.4C in Perpignan, breaking the national May record of 37C set in Corsica decades ago. Public health warnings cascaded across the country: at the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris, loudspeakers urged passengers, in German, to stay hydrated; outside the Musée de l’Orangerie, staff handed out umbrellas to tourists queuing for hours in the sun. Fourteen departments remained under orange heat alert on Friday, though the northwest began to see relief as cooler Atlantic air edged in, prompting authorities to downgrade warnings for Morbihan, Ille-et-Vilaine and Mayenne.
Italy, too, sweltered under what meteorologists described as an anomalous but not isolated event, part of a chain of climate extremes. Rome was placed under a red alert as temperatures hit 32C, while Bologna, Florence and Turin had earlier faced similar warnings. By Friday, however, the heat loosened its grip: only Genoa remained on orange alert, and 20 cities, including Milan and Palermo, shifted to the lower yellow level. Across the Channel, London recorded 35C—fully 16 degrees above the May average—while authorities in Germany, Spain and Switzerland monitored health impacts and prepared for the heat to persist into the weekend.
The episode begins to fade in northwestern Europe, yet swathes of the south and east will continue to wilt through the coming days, with parts of Portugal still forecast to exceed 35C before a gradual decline. Analysts in European capitals note that while any single heatwave cannot be attributed solely to climate change, the frequency and intensity of such spring heat events align with modelled predictions of a warming world. Even far from the European theatre, unseasonable warmth touched the Middle East: Tehran reached 36C, and Israeli forecasters warned of rising temperatures and localized rain, a volatile mix emblematic of the hemisphere’s increasingly erratic weather.
How the same story is told elsewhere.
An unusually early heatwave is shattering records across western Europe, with temperatures above 40 °C in Portugal and 35 °C in London. Meteorologists call May unprecedented in climatic terms and link it to a sequence of extreme events, while governments activate emergency plans and expect only a slow cooldown.
As Europe swelters under a heatwave, Portugal sets a new May record, French ministers scramble to assess heatwave preparedness, and a top tennis player withdraws from the French Open due to the heat. With a red alert in Rome, the report takes a detached look at the climate disruptions afflicting the global North.
France faces a historically early heatwave, with orange alert in Paris and new national temperature records. The government urgently prepares public services for summer, as climatologists describe the number of shattered monthly records as colossal, and the intense heat is expected to recede only gradually.
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