Spain expected to record its hottest day of the year with temperatures topping 45 degrees Celsius (113 F) in parts of the Iberian Peninsula on Saturday, while Italian authorities expanded the number of cities on red alert for health risks as a heat wave settled over Southern Europe.
In the southern Spanish province of Granada, where the mercury hit 40 degrees Celsius(104 F) by midday, few people ventured outside. Those who did sought shade and stopped to take photos of public thermometers displaying the rocketing temperature.
Dominic Roy, a climate scientist at the University of Santiago de Compostela, said the hot air from the Sahara that had brought days of hot weather and wildfires continued to stream over to Mediterranean countries.
The heat wave we are experiencing now is very extreme, and a lot of people are saying that its normal as we are in summer. But its not, not this hot, Roye said.
With nighttime temperatures forecast to exceed 25 degrees Celsius (77 F) in much of Spain,…
