Spain sweltered under hottest summer on record

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MADRID (AP) — Spain said Tuesday that this summer was the hottest on record for the southern European nation, which like the entire Mediterranean region is being hard hit by climate change.

Spain's national weather service said that the country had an average temperature of 24.2 C (75.5 F) between June 1 and Aug. 31. That is the highest temperature since the service started keeping records in 1961. The previous record was 24.1 C from the summer of 2022.

This summer was also 2.1 degrees Celsius (3.7 F) hotter than the national average from 1991-2020.

The highest single-day temperature of 45.8 C (119.3 F) was recorded in Jerez de la Frontera, in southern Spain, on Aug. 17 during a heat wave.

The Mediterranean region is heating up 20% faster than the global average, according to the United Nations.

The scorching summer months also saw Spain's countryside burn.

A record 382,000 hectares (944,000 acres) burned in a spate of wildfires, surpassing the previous high of 306,000 hectares (756,000 acres) burned in 2022, according to data compiled by the European Union’s European Forest Fire Information System.

Spain's weather service added that the country also had a particularly dry summer, especially in the areas of the northwest where wildfires did most of their damage.