Italy swelters as Spain and Portugal brace for coming heatwave

11 August 2021, 21:44

A woman sits near a fountain in a street of Catania, Sicily (Salvatore Cavalli/AP)
Italy Heat Wave. Picture: PA

A heatwave fed by hot air from North Africa has engulfed large parts of the Mediterranean region in recent days.

Italy baked in sweltering temperatures that continued to drive deadly wildfires on Wednesday, with Spain and Portugal bracing for the arrival of a dangerous heatwave that has grilled south-eastern Europe and is starting to push west toward the Iberian peninsula.

A heatwave fed by hot air from North Africa has engulfed large parts of the Mediterranean region in recent days, contributing to massive wildfires and killing dozens of people in Italy, Turkey and Algeria.

In Greece, huge wildfires have ravaged forests for a week, destroying homes and forcing evacuations.

Sicily recorded on Wednesday what may be a new European temperature record, though weather experts cautioned that the measurement still must be confirmed.

The Sicily region’s agriculture-meteorological information service, SIAS, reported that a temperature of 48.8C (119.84F) was reached at the island’s Syracuse station.

People refresh in the sea in Palermo, Sicily, Italy
People refresh in the sea in Palermo, Sicily, Italy (Alberto Lo Bianco/LaPresse via AP)

The agency said on its Facebook page it is the highest temperature registered in the entire network since its installation in 2002.

The highest temperature ever recorded on the European continent is 48C (118.40F) in 1977 in Athens.

The Sicily temperature could not be independently confirmed, however, and Italy’s air force meteorological service said it had not recorded temperatures approaching that high on Wednesday but that its stations are in other locations so variations are to be expected.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said it would examine the reading but Randy Cerveny, the agency’s rapporteur for weather records, called it “suspicious, so we’re not going to make any immediate determination”.

“It doesn’t sound terribly plausible,” he said. “But we’re not going to dismiss it.”

Workers on a construction site stop to have a drink in Madrid, Spain
Workers on a construction site stop to have a drink in Madrid, Spain (Paul White/AP)

WMO spokeswoman Sylvie Castonguay counselled caution: “Extreme weather and climate events are often sensationalised and mischaracterised as ‘records’ before they have been thoroughly investigated and properly validated.”

However, the high-pressure system of near-record strength currently centred over the Mediterranean is the type that can produce unprecedented heat somewhere, meteorologist Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections said.

North Africa is also flirting with all-time high temperatures, he said.

Spain and Portugal could see what was heading their way, as temperatures on the Iberian peninsula were forecast to start building from Thursday.

Portugal’s prime minister warned that the hot weather increases the threat of wildfires, which in 2017 killed more than 100 people in his country.

Spain’s weather service forecast a heatwave through Monday and said temperatures could surpass 44C (111F) in some areas.

“The maximum and minimum temperatures will reach levels far above the normal for this time of the year,” Spain’s weather service, AEMET, said in a “special weather warning”.

A woman fans herself in Madrid, Spain
Temperatures are beginning to rise at the start of an oncoming heatwave in Spain (Paul White/AP)

Such peaks of temperature are not unheard of in Spain and Portugal during the summer months. Even so, climate scientists say there is little doubt climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is driving extreme events, such as heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, floods and storms.

Researchers can directly link a single event to climate change only through intensive data analysis, but they say such calamities are expected to happen more frequently on our warming planet.

Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa urged people to take special care amid the scorching weather and wildfire danger, adding that many wildfires start with careless behaviour.

Mr Costa said “the terrible images” from Greece and Turkey in recent days brought back Portuguese memories of 2017.

“We don’t want to see that scenario here again,” Mr Costa said in a videotaped message at his official residence.

Portuguese authorities say they can deploy more than 12,000 firefighters, some 2,700 vehicles and 60 aircraft during the summer season.

Mr Costa said that over the past three years Portugal has reduced by half the number of wildfires compared with the average of the previous 10 years and cut the charred area by 64%.

Authorities enacted a broad range of measures after 2017. They included better forest management, including woodland clearance projects and technical support for people living in rural areas, opening thousands of miles of firebreaks and reacting more rapidly to outbreaks with special firefighting units.

Nobody has died in forest blazes in Portugal since 2017.

By Press Association

Latest World News

See more Latest World News

South Carolina Execution

Inmate dies by lethal injection in South Carolina’s first execution in 13 years

Lebanon Israel Exploding Pagers

Weaponising ordinary devices violates international law, UN rights chief says

Sri Lanka Presidential Election

Sri Lankans vote in election to decide how nation recovers from economic crisis

Baldwin Set Shooting

Alec Baldwin urges judge to stand by Rust involuntary manslaughter dismissal

Election 2024 Voting Begins

First in-person votes cast in US presidential election

People gather at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut

Hezbollah confirms death of top military official in Israeli airstrike in Beirut

An aerial view of Three Mile Island in the US

Infamous US nuclear site Three Mile Island to reopen in deal with Microsoft

People and rescuers gather at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut

At least 14 killed and 60 wounded in Israeli strike on Beirut

People gather near a damaged building at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut

Israel’s military says its strike on Beirut killed senior Hezbollah official

A youth plays with a ring at the end of a wire inside a school where people displaced by gang violence have taken refuge for over a year in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Haiti’s insecurity worsening as gangs seize more territory – UN rights expert

Courthouse Shooting Kentucky

Kentucky sheriff charged with murdering judge in courthouse

Remains of the Titan submersible on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean

Things to know about this week’s evidence on the Titan sub disaster

The Israeli army detain a person in the West Bank town of Qabatiya during a raid

Israeli soldiers ‘pushed lifeless bodies’ from rooftops during West Bank raid

Election 2024 Trump

Report finds communication failures before Trump assassination attempt

Basalt Cliffs beach, Reynishverfi, Gardar, Myrdalur, Southern Iceland

Police shoot rare polar bear spotted outside cottage in Iceland village

Netherlands Stabbing

Man arrested after fatal stabbing in Rotterdam suspected of terrorist motive