Spain has just recorded its second-hottest June since records began, according to provisional data from the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet). The agency has classified the month as 'extremely warm', a category reserved for exceptionally abnormal events.
The average temperature across mainland Spain was 23.2 °C, 3.2 °C above the average for the 1991–2020 period. Only June 2025, with an average of 23.6 °C, has been hotter in the Aemet historical series, which began in 1961.
The heatwave that marked the end of the month also broke several daily records. On 22 and 23 June, Spain recorded the two hottest June days since at least 1950. The agency described the episode as 'extraordinary' because of its intensity, duration and geographical extent, especially in the northern half of the mainland, where numerous temperature records were broken.
The extreme heat also had a major impact on health. The daily all-cause mortality monitoring system (MoMo), run by the Ministry of Health, provisionally estimates nearly 900 deaths attributable to high temperatures during the month. More than 600 of those deaths were concentrated in the week of the heatwave.
With the final data for the last days of June still to be incorporated, the system had estimated 892 deaths as of this Tuesday, making it the second June with the highest heat-related mortality since records began in 2015.
The MoMo system does not directly tally deaths certified as being caused by heat; instead, it calculates excess mortality by comparing observed deaths with those expected for each period and links that excess to episodes of potentially dangerous temperatures.
Heatwaves hitting earlier each year
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, they are also arriving earlier in the calendar and prolonging the summer.
Aemet 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 driven by greenhouse gas emissions, 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 also seen worldwide, where temperature records are being broken more and more often and recent years rank among the hottest ever recorded.
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