Central Europe swelters and Slovakia and Austria hit their record high temperatures

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BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Temperatures in Central Europe soared to extreme levels again on Wednesday with Slovakia and Austria both having their hottest day on record.

For Slovakia, it was also the third time this summer that temperatures reached a record high. The country's south recorded temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in the latest heat wave, with a new record of 41.4 C (106.5 F) in the town of Kamenica nad Hronom in southern Slovakia, the Slovak Meteorological Institute said.

The previous records were set on two days — June 29 and June 30 — with 41.0 C (105.8 F) in the town of Turna nad Bodvou, and 41.3 C (106.3 F) in Kamenica nad Hronom.

That smashed a 2007 high of 40.3 C (104.5 F) in the town of Hurbanovo.

The night of Tuesday into Wednesday was also the hottest on record, with 28.4 degrees Celsius (83 F) in the town of Skalica in southwestern Slovakia.

In Austria, the all-time high of 41.2 C (106.1 F) was measured in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg near the border with Slovakia, beating a 41.0 C (105.8 F) record from the previous day, the GeoSphere meteorological service said.

The Czech Republic and Hungary had also recorded their all-time highs earlier this summer.

This year, Europe has been sweltering under an exceptionally hot and arid summer, with tinderbox conditions setting off unprecedented fires that have forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate homes and vacation spots.

The continent is the world’s fastest-warming, with temperatures increasing twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.