Europe heat dome update: Spain reached 38C on Thursday, and the first significant heat event of the summer is set to push temperatures above 30C across Portugal, Spain, France and the UK from Friday into next week. Rubén del Campo of Aemet said, “Full-on summer heat is the phrase that best describes the weather we’ll see across most of Spain over the coming days.”
Spain Braces For 38C
Aemet said temperatures in Spain will run between 5C and 10C above the seasonal average, with northern regions 10C above average for the time of year. The agency said those are the kind of temperatures normally seen in July and August, not in late May, and forecast highs of up to 38C in the Guadiana and Guadalquivir regions.
The same forecast points to 32C in Paris and London, while south-west France could reach 35C. Aemet said the hot spell is expected to stretch well into next week, making the heat both early and sustained rather than a one-day spike.
France Records Near May Highs
Météo-France said maximum and minimum temperatures are likely to reach unprecedented levels for the season in multiple regions, particularly the south-west, during a premature heat event that will be intense and last several days. The forecaster said records are almost certain for the highest May temperature recorded in France and for the highest average temperature across France on a day in May.
France’s current May temperature records sit at 30.5C in 2025 and 22.8C for the highest average temperature across France on a day in May, set in 2017. Météo-France also described expected temperatures in Brittany as “quite remarkable so early in the pre-summer season,” linking the forecast to a heat dome that traps hot air from Morocco under a powerful anticyclone.
UK Heatwave Threshold
The Met Office said temperatures in the UK could reach 33C locally on Monday. The current highest temperature recorded in May in the UK is 32.8C, set in 1944, and parts of the country could enter a heatwave if temperatures exceed 26C to 28C for three days.
For people in Spain, France, Portugal and the UK, the practical shift is immediate: daytime heat will move into early-summer territory for several days, with May records in play in hundreds of places. In Galicia, the heat has already carried a separate human cost after a two-year-old girl died when she was accidentally left in her father’s car for hours.
The next pressure point arrives on Monday, when the Met Office’s 33C local forecast will test whether parts of the UK cross the threshold for a heatwave. By then, the same system is expected to have already pushed Western Europe through several days of unusually early heat.
