Spain ends its second-hottest June on record with nearly 900 heat deaths

Spain's weather agency Aemet says June was “extremely hot”, the second warmest since 1961. The heatwave is estimated to have caused nearly 900 deaths, according to the MoMo monitoring system. Spain ended June as the second-warmest on record, according to provisional data from the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet). The agency has described the month as "extremely hot", a category reserved for exceptionally abnormal episodes. The average temperature in mainland Spain was 23.2ºC, 3.2ºC above the average for the 1991–2020 period. Only June 2025, with an average of 23.6ºC, recorded higher values since Aemet’s historical series began in 1961. The heatwave that marked the end of the month also broke several daily records. 22 and 23 June were the two hottest days ever recorded in June since at least 1950. The agency labelled the episode "extraordinary" because of its intensity, duration and geographical reach, especially in the north of the mainland, where numerous temperature records were broken. The extreme heat also had a significant impact on health. The daily mortality monitoring system for all causes (MoMo), which is overseen by the Ministry of Health, provisionally estimates around 900 deaths attributable to the high temperatures during the month. More than 600 of those deaths occurred during the week of the heatwave. Pending the inclusion of final data for the last days of June, the system had estimated 892 deaths as of Tuesday, making this June the second with the highest heat-related mortality since records began in 2015. The MoMo system does not directly count deaths certified as caused by heat, but rather calculates excess mortality by comparing observed deaths with those expected for each period and linking them to episodes of potentially dangerous temperatures. Heatwaves arriving earlier and earlier The heatwave that affected much of the mainland and the Balearic Islands between 22 and 24 June is part of an increasingly clear trend. Heatwaves are now not only more frequent and intense, but they also arrive earlier in the year and extend the length of the summer. Aemet’s data show that between 1975 and 2000 only two heatwaves were recorded in June in mainland Spain. Between 2000 and 2025 that figure rose to ten. Experts link this development to global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions derived mainly from the use of fossil fuels. The fact that the two warmest Junes in the historical series have been the last two reflects a trend that is also evident worldwide, where temperature records are increasingly frequent and recent years rank among the hottest ever recorded.