Spain’s average temperature in August 2025 hit 25C, matching the national record set the same month last year, the national meteorological agency AEMET said Friday.
The country endured a record 16-day heatwave last month that fuelled wildfires that killed four people and which the Carlos III Health Institute estimates caused more than 1,100 deaths — mostly over-65s.
“For most of August, temperatures were above average, with a notable prolonged and intense heat wave occurring between August 3 and 18,” the agency said in a statement.
“During this period, both daily maximum and minimum temperatures were well above the average,” it added.
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AEMET has previously said that last month’s heatwave was “the most intense on record”, with average temperatures 4.6C above previous events.
Since it began keeping records in 1975, AEMET has registered 77 heatwaves in Spain, with six going 4C or more above the average.
Five of those have been since 2019.
More than 380,000 hectares (nearly 1,500 square miles) have burned this year — a record annual total and nearly five times the annual average, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.
The bulk of the land was ravaged in August, when massive blazes hit the northwest and west of Spain, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people.
Scientists say climate change is driving longer, more intense and more frequent heatwaves worldwide.
Human-caused climate change made the hot, dry and windy conditions that fuelled the deadly wildfires in Spain and neighbouring Portugal last month 40 times more likely, researchers said Thursday in a report published by World Weather Attribution.
