An official Spanish monitoring agency said an estimated 212 deaths could be attributed to a sweltering heat wave that choked the country between Sunday and Wednesday with temperatures that, in many places, soared well over 38 degrees Celsius, or 100 degrees Fahrenheit, a public institute linked to the ministry said Thursday.
A monitoring system at the Health Institute of Carlos III compiles daily death statistics from Spain’s regions and compares them with historical averages. It includes possible external causes for spikes in mortality rates. The scorching temperatures around the country this week amounted to a smoking gun.
The institute, known as MoMo, an abbreviation for the monitoring of mortality rates, found that 114 more people died than during the same four-day period last year. It reported that 200 of the deaths were people over the age of 65, and that 148 of them were 85 or older.
An official at MoMo cautioned that the figures were statistical estimates of excess mortality attributable to heat, and that the heat wave could not officially be determined to be the cause of death.
But officials and experts say a correlation is clear. More extreme heat, and for longer periods of time, presented a grave danger, even in a country with deep experience of living with high temperatures, they added.
Diana Gómez, a scientist at the National Center for Epidemiology (CNE) who manages the monitoring instrument, told the Spanish news agency EFE that the data revealed “a significant spike” of deaths in the last four days. She added, referring to heat waves, that “the earlier they start, the greater their effect on mortality.”
Spain reported 3,832 heat-related deaths last year between May 16 and Sept. 30, itself an 87.6 percent increase from the same period in 2024, according to MoMo data.
Temperatures eased on Thursday, but data from Spain’s national weather agency AEMET showed that the usually cooler northern areas of the country cracked 40 degrees Celsius, or 104 degrees Fahrenheit, in the last few days.
On Tuesday, the northern area of Cantabria, long a getaway from the scorching temperatures of southern Spain, became intolerable, reaching 43.7 degrees Celsius, more than 110 degrees Fahrenheit, in the municipality of Tama, the highest temperature ever recorded in the region. Broad swaths of the north spent days under heat alerts.
Just as there was no place to flee from the heat, there was no time in the day to look forward to.
The heat wave was notable for record-breaking night temperatures, causing what Spaniards call “tropical nights” that threaten public health and ruin sleep for those without air conditioning. On Monday, the average evening temperature reached 20.14 degrees Celsius, about 68 degrees Fahrenheit, and 19.81 degrees Celsius, about 67 Fahrenheit, on Tuesday, the highest since Spain began keeping records.
Monday and Tuesday of this week amounted to the two hottest days in June on the Spanish mainland since at least 1950, Spain’s weather agency reported Wednesday. The average temperature of 28.17 degrees Celsius, nearly 83 degrees Fahrenheit, on Tuesday overtook the previous record, set on June 30 last year.
“During this heat wave, three days have ranked among the ten hottest in the historical record for the month of June,” the agency said.
According to the state monitoring system, Wednesday accounted for an estimated 95 deaths, almost half the total. An estimated 38 people died on Monday and 66 on Tuesday.
The agency registered excess mortality mostly in the center and north of Spain, with the highest in Catalonia, the region that hosts Barcelona, with 43 deaths. But the Basque Country, often a refuge for southerners, registered an estimated 28 deaths from heat.
On Thursday, temperatures receded around Spain, including in Cantabria, where rain fell and temperatures hit the low 20s in Celsius or low 70s in Fahrenheit. In Madrid too, thunder rolled and rain poured down. Few seemed to mind.
Carlos Barragán contributed reporting from Madrid.
