Europe heat wave intensifies as fresh warnings issued

A spokesperson for an association of Italian ice cream-makers in Germany said the current heat wave was bringing temperatures too hot even for ice cream.

When temperatures reach 30 degrees Celsius, people only want something to drink, the spokesperson told the Rheinische Post newspaper, adding that ideal weather for ice cream sales was at a temperature of 25 or 26 degrees.

The town of Andernach in western Germany has recorded 39.3 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit), marking the highest temperature so far this year, according to preliminary data from the German Weather Service (DWD).

Tangerhütte-Demker in Saxony-Anhalt logged the second-highest reading at 39.2 C, while Kitzingen in Bavaria followed with 39.1 degrees C.

These figures fell short of Germany's all-time heat record of 41.2 degrees C, set on July 25, 2019, at DWD stations in Tönisvorst and Duisburg-Baerl in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Final readings for some locations on Wednesday are still to come. 

Meteorologists have forecast thunderstorms for later in the day that were expected to bring relief and drop temperatures.

The weather service warned of a "localized risk" of severe weather as storms move across parts of the country.

Meteorologists have forecast thunderstorms for later this evening that are expected to bring relief and drop temperatures.

The weather service warned of a "localized risk" of severe weather as storms move across parts of the country.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) says heatwaves, floods, and wildfires are costing Europe billions of euros every year.

In 2023 alone, climate-related events cost Europe over €45 billion.

According to the EEA analysis, the leading causes of the damage were floods, storms, wind and hail, while heatwaves caused the most deaths.

Germany, Italy, France, and Spain saw the highest monetary losses.

The environmental agency says little of this damage was insured. 

Do you want to know the temperature in a given European city? Simply position your cursor (or finger, if you are using a smartphone) on the city on this map, and the temperature there will appear in Celsius.

Coldiretti, Italy's main umbrella organization for farmers and agriculture, issued a dire message on Wednesday about the effect the heatwave is having on food production.

In Lombardy, for example, where half of Italy's milk is produced, there has been a 10% drop in production due to the heatwave. 

In Piedmont, Tuscany, and Umbria, where much of the country's fruits and vegetables are produced, farmers are rushing to cover their crops with tarps. Coldiretti reported that hundreds of kilograms of melons have literally been cooked on the vine.

Wheat, barley, grapes, and eggplants have also been heavily affected.

Umbria had already reported major issues for spring crops like sunflowers and corn were already struggling due to the heat.

Coldiretti also warned that the unstable weather was likely to adversely effect Italy's colder, mountainous regions to the north due to landslides.

Thirteen of Italy's 20 regions have halted all outdoor work between 11 am and 4 pm, including Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, home to much of the country's industry.

The news came after it was confirmed that a 47-year-old construction worker who died in Emilia-Romagna on Monday lost his life due to complications from heatstroke.

Hospitals across Italy have reported 15-20% in emergency admissions in the past week.

Germany's national railway operator Deutsche Bahn (DB) has announced nationwide disruptions due to heat.

Across the country, rail lines that had been due for maintenance could not be repaired due to unsafe conditions for workers.

DB also announced line closures in the country's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia due to the weather.

Many DB-operated bus lines were also down, the company said, due to lack of air conditioning and other risks to equipment due to extreme heat.

Tourists would not be able to visit the viewing deck at the summit of the Eiffel Tower in Paris until Thursday at the earliest, city officials said, saying the decision was for "everyone's comfort and safety."

The Ile-de-France region, which includes the capital and its surroundings, said it had received at least 900 calls on the heatwave emergency hotline.

Some 300 people had been treated by local hospitals for heat-related illnesses, officials said.

It appeared that the power grids in several Italian cities were not equipped to handle the increased demand for climate control on Wednesday — leading to black outs in Rome, Florence, Milan, and Bergamo.

Air conditioning in homes is not the norm for Italy, even in the summer, but due to increasing heat waves, more and more people are buying units for their houses and apartments.

In Florence, some people got stuck in elevators and traffic lights stopped working across the city as the power went out.

Some 48 passengers had to be rescued from a train in the town of Elsfleth in northern Germany on Tuesday evening after it became stuck on a rail bridge.

The train was forced to make the unplanned stop due to a technical fault, which also caused the air conditioning to work at limited capacity.

As the carriages became hotter and hotter, the passengers called the local emergency rescue services, who were able to extract them from the bridge.

State police and ambulances rushed to the site to attend to the passengers and crew. Two teenage passengers had to be taken to a local hospital but no one was seriously hurt.

A wildfire that broke out in Spain's Catalonia region due to the extreme heat and dryness has killed at least two people, authorities confirmed on Wednesday.

The blaze began in Torrefeta on Tuesday afternoon, and has destroyed large swaths of farmland.

"The fire was extremely violent and erratic due to storms and strong winds, generating a convection cloud that complicated extinguishing efforts," the local fire department said in a statement.

Some 14,000 residents had been warned to stay inside their homes. However, the blaze was largely contained by Wednesday and the area was awaiting thunderstorms that were expected to further extinguish the fire.

Meteorologists in France and Germany have predicted that the continent's deadly heat wave will likely break overnight on Wednesday, as rain and thunderstorms roll in from the Atlantic.

"Our latest forecasts confirm the arrival of cooling from the west on Wednesday, which will quickly affect the northwest of the country," Meteo-France said, expecting thunderstorms near the German border.

Germany's national weather service (DWD) said that while the mercury could hit 40 degrees Celsius in some parts of the country on Wednesday, the average was expected to fall to 27 by Thursday.

In Spain and Italy, which have seen the most extreme temperatures at up to 46 degrees Celsius or 114 Fahrenheit, the weather is expected to cool by the weekend.

French scientists have said that June 2025 was the second-hottest for the country since it began keeping records in 1900.

"June 2025 has become the second hottest June since records began in 1900, behind June 2003," French Ecology Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said on Wednesday morning.

Later on Wednesday, Pannier-Runacher said that "more than 300 people have been taken into emergency care, and two have died as a result of heat-related illnesses," in the country.

French President Emmanuel Macron has attempted to enact climate protections, such as banning domestic flights, to varying degrees of success. However, some initiatives have resulted in major discontent from voters, including a fuel tax that led to the Yellow Vest protests that lasted from 2018 to 2020.

Teresa Ribera, who heads up the European Commission's green transition team, has accused the bloc's political leaders of being too scared to address climate change as life-threatening temperatures cripple Europe.

Speaking with the British newspaper The Guardian, she said that Wednesday's forecast showed "absolutely terrible temperatures that have a very serious impact on ecosystems, on the economy and on health. And I think that there hasn’t yet been a real shift from the headlines about extreme meteorological phenomena to preparing people and understanding what needs to be done in the case of certain events."

In light of this, she said she could not understand why many major political parties "continue to insist, quite vehemently, that climate change does not exist."

Ribera said she believes that fear of how much it will cost — politically and financially — to address the climate emergency is driving much of the inaction, but warned that allowing climate breakdown will be much more costly in the long run.

National weather services across central and northern Europe have issued warnings over excessive heat in many of the continent's largest cities, according to aggregator MeteoAlarm.

Brussels, Cologne, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Paris, and Budapest are all expected to see temperatures of at least 35 degrees Celsius, or 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

"Drink water several times a day. Continue to eat normally. Wet your body several times a day using a spray, a washcloth or by taking warm showers or baths," read a warning issued by France's meteorological service. "Do not go out during the hottest hours."