Spain experienced this year the warmest months of June, July and August on record, with a “persistence of high temperatures entirely exceptional,” said today the Spanish meteorological agency (Aemet).
“The summer of 2026 was the hottest” in Spain since at least 1961, the year from which there are comparable records, revealed Aemet in a statement.
“The persistence of high temperatures was entirely exceptional: Spain endured 61 days under a heatwave in 2026. That is 20 days more than the previous record, in 2022,” according to the same note.
The average temperature in Spain in June, July and August was 24.5 degrees Celsius (°C), 0.3°C higher than in 2025, which had until now the highest average recorded in the same quarter.
Aemet underlined that the average temperature in these months this year is, on the one hand, 2.4°C above the reference period average (1991-2020) and that “the ten hottest summers [June, July and August] in the historical series occurred in the 21st century” and that “seven of the eight hottest since 2015.”
In addition to the four heatwaves that affected the continental territory of Spain and the Balearic Islands in June, July and August this year, “the peak summer conditions extended beyond this quarter and there was a “very high temperature episode in May and a heatwave in September,”” the Aemet also noted.
According to official data, the number of heat-related deaths in Spain this summer surpassed 5,100 between 01 June and 31 August and is a record since records began.
According to the Carlos III Health Institute’s “MoMO” platform, which monitors daily mortality in the country, there were 5,111 heat-related deaths in Spain in June, July and August, surpassing 4,653 in 2022, the highest number in these three months to date.
Last year, there were 3,651 heat-related deaths in Spain between 01 June and 31 August.
The platform aggregates daily mortality data in Spain since 2015.
This summer, Spain was also affected by large wildfires, coinciding with weeks of high temperatures.
Since the start of the year, around 296,000 hectares burned in the country, according to the European EFFIS system.
In 2025, fires scorched 393,000 hectares in Spain, the largest area burned in a single year on record in the country.
