Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on September 16, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleSpain's 2025 summer was the hottest on record, with severe heatwaves and wildfires, highlighting climate change impacts.
MADRID (Reuters) -This summer was Spain's hottest since records began in 1961, as the country experienced more than a month of heatwaves caused by climate change that helped stoke its worst season of wildfires in three decades.
The summer of 2025 was 2.1 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1991-2020 average and surpassed the previous warmest summer recorded in 2022 by 0.1 degrees, state weather agency AEMET said.
Nine of the 10 hottest summers in Spain have occurred in the 21st century, with more heat to come, AEMET spokesperson Ruben del Campo said in an interview with Reuters.
"These summers of 2022 and 2025 are a trailer - or spoiler - for what could happen in the middle of the century," del Campo said. "One in every three days this summer we have been under a heatwave."
Del Campo said Spain would need to adapt to hotter summers while continuing to contribute to the global effort to curb climate change by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
Spain experienced three heatwaves spanning 36 days during the summer. A 16-day heatwave in August saw temperatures exceed 45C in the south of the country and was the most intense on record, according to AEMET.
Countries across the world are experiencing record-breaking heat in recent years as global warming accelerates. The summer of 2024 was the northern hemisphere's warmest while summer 2025 was Britain's hottest since records began in 1884.
Intense heat helped fan wildfires that burned through a record 1.03 million hectares (nearly 4,000 square miles) across the European Union, according to data by the EU's European Forest Fire Information System, analysed by Reuters.
In the inland part of Spain's northwestern region of Galicia, which suffered some of the worst blazes, temperatures were 3C warmer than normal, AEMET said.
(Reporting by Charlie Devereux; Editing by Ros Russell)
The summer of 2025 was 2.1 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1991-2020 average.
Spain experienced three heatwaves spanning 36 days during the summer.
Del Campo mentioned that summers like those in 2022 and 2025 are a preview of what could happen in the middle of the century.
Intense heat helped fan wildfires that burned through a record 1.03 million hectares across the European Union.
Spain needs to adapt to hotter summers while continuing to contribute to global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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