Europe braced Wednesday for another day of a sweltering, record-breaking heat wave that left tens of thousands of people without power and sent sales of air conditioning soaring on an unused continent ill-equipped to withstand scorching heat.
The extreme weather is being driven by atmospheric patterns that keep warm air trapped in place for days, and these factors are worsening with global warming, experts said.
France's national temperature gauge (an average of day and night temperatures across 30 stations) reached 29.8℃ on Tuesday, the highest level since measurements began in 1947.
With four more French departments under the highest heat alert category on Wednesday, around 44 million people are affected, according to AFP calculations.
Added to the 31 departments currently on orange alert, more than 90% of the French population is exposed to extreme heat, with temperatures expected to reach 39°C to 41°C on Wednesday from Brittany to the Paris region and much of the southwest.
The heat wave caused the country's first major power outage in the latest episode of extreme weather, after a heat-related incident with a transformer left about 68,000 homes without power on Wednesday in the northwestern department of Finisterre, authorities said.
While crews worked through the night to fix the issue, which occurred Tuesday night, power is not expected to be fully restored until late Wednesday at the earliest.
Up to 106,000 customers on the French power grid were left without power late on Tuesday, scientists say, as scorching temperatures overloaded infrastructure built for the days before man-made climate change and led to longer, more frequent and intense heat waves.
Sales of fans and air conditioners have soared in a country where most buildings are not designed to withstand extreme heat.
On Monday, hypermarket operator Carrefour had sold 30,000 units by 6:30 p.m., “a thousand times more than on a normal day,” said CEO Alexandre Bompard.
Sales on Amazon almost doubled last week compared to the same period in 2025, while electronics retailer Fnac Darty posted double-digit growth.
Thierry, an electrician in southwestern France, said he was overwhelmed by requests for “emergency” air conditioning installations.
“In theory, you have to submit an application at the general meeting of the community of owners” in residential complexes, “but people don't want to wait.”
“It's difficult to live” alone and without air conditioning, said Martine Belloc, a 62-year-old retiree from Bordeaux, who went Tuesday to La ManuCo, a coworking space that mobilized to welcome older people.
'We are suffocating'
John Beeler, a 45-year-old American engineer, said he and his wife were baking in the French capital.
“Visiting Paris in this heat is horrible,” he said. AFPwearing a fisherman hat and holding a small fan.
“We suffocated on the streets, we suffocated on the subway and we even suffocated in our rental car,” he said, adding that they would be moved to an air-conditioned hotel room.
Italy's Health Ministry declared a red alert for a heat wave in 16 cities, including Milan and Rome, on Wednesday.
The heat wave is expected to spread to eastern Europe in the coming days.
Poland's meteorological service issued high-level heat warnings for the western part of the country from Thursday to Saturday, predicting that temperatures could surpass the record of 40.2℃ set in 1921.
Croatia's popular Adriatic coast was also placed under red alert for Friday and Saturday.
Hungary, already under a second-level heat alert, said it would raise it to the maximum level from Saturday to Tuesday as temperatures continued to rise.
The current heatwave is “significantly exacerbated by human-induced climate change”, without which current temperatures would have been between 2°C and 4°C colder, according to a scientific study published this week.
But some relief could begin to arrive from the west on Wednesday, when Spain's national weather service said temperatures would drop in most of the country.
No quick relief
But a rapid drop in temperature is not in sight for much of the rest of Western Europe.
From Wednesday until at least Friday, the central and southern Netherlands will be under code orange for extreme heat.
Anyone living in Amsterdam with a city pass can swim for free in six outdoor pools in the city, while national rail company NS will operate fewer trains on several routes from Wednesday.
In Britain, James Bowen, deputy general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said AFP that “virtually all schools across the UK will have to make some form of adaptation this week in light of the extreme heat.”
“I think it's fair to say that the UK school campus is not well prepared for this level of heat,” he said.
After some of France's most visited sites, including the Louvre museum and the Eiffel Tower, decided to limit visiting hours, the administration of one of Belgium's best-known monuments, the space-age Atomium in Brussels, said it would close earlier to visitors from Wednesday to Friday.
