Western Europe Scorched by Unprecedented June Heatwave

Summary

Western Europe expe­ri­enced its hottest June on record in 2025, with two sig­nif­i­cant heat­waves caus­ing ​“very strong heat stress” in coun­tries like Portugal and Spain, impact­ing olive oil pro­duc­tion. While the extreme tem­per­a­tures have not yet had a dra­matic effect on the upcom­ing har­vest, a pro­longed sum­mer of extreme heat could lead to a lower national olive yield and impact olive oil pro­duc­tion.

Western Europe expe­ri­enced its hottest June on record in 2025, accord­ing to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, exceed­ing the pre­vi­ous record set in 2003.

Two sig­nif­i­cant heat­waves resulted in ​“very strong heat stress” across large swatches of south­ern and west­ern Europe, includ­ing the olive oil-pro­duc­ing coun­tries of France, Portugal and Spain.

Copernicus reported that Portugal, the world’s sixth-largest olive oil pro­ducer, expe­ri­enced ​“extreme heat stress” in June, with feels-like tem­per­a­tures reach­ing 48 ºC. Meanwhile, neigh­bor­ing Spain, the world’s largest pro­ducer, faced its hottest June in 64 years.

“June 2025 saw an excep­tional heat­wave impact large parts of west­ern Europe, with much of the region expe­ri­enc­ing very strong heat stress,” said Samantha Burgess, the strate­gic lead for cli­mate at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

“This heat­wave was made more intense by record sea sur­face tem­per­a­tures in the west­ern Mediterranean,” she added. ​“In a warm­ing world, heat­waves are likely to become more fre­quent, more intense and impact more peo­ple across Europe.”

According to data from Copernicus, Europe is the fastest-warm­ing con­ti­nent, with aver­age tem­per­a­tures ris­ing at twice the global aver­age. 

The ser­vice attrib­uted faster warm­ing in Europe to shift­ing weather pat­terns that bring more fre­quent heat­waves, reduced air pol­lu­tion allow­ing more solar radi­a­tion to reach the sur­face and its prox­im­ity to the rapidly warm­ing Arctic.

The cur­rent heat­waves have come at a del­i­cate moment for olive grow­ers in the three coun­tries, which com­bined to pro­duce an esti­mated 1.6 mil­lion met­ric tons in the 2024/25 crop year, account­ing for 47 per­cent of total global pro­duc­tion.

However, Juan Vilar, the chief exec­u­tive of the Jaén-based olive oil con­sul­tancy Vilcon, said this year’s extreme tem­per­a­tures have not impacted the olive groves as severely as the intensely hot and dry con­di­tions in 2022 and 2023, which resulted in two his­tor­i­cally low har­vests.

“To be clear: heat does affect olive trees, but it usu­ally does­n’t have much impact, except when it comes with wind,” Vilar said. ​“Despite the heat waves, I’ve been out vis­it­ing the olive groves, and so far I haven’t seen any seri­ous effects.”

“Also, rain­fall has been plen­ti­ful and the soil still retains some mois­ture,” he added. ​“So, while [the extreme tem­per­a­tures are] not ideal, it has­n’t had a dra­matic effect on the upcom­ing har­vest yet. If this were com­bined with a series of other neg­a­tive fac­tors, it could have harm­ful con­se­quences, but for now, that has­n’t hap­pened.”

While not­ing that abun­dant win­ter rain­fall has replen­ished aquifers and will enable irri­gated olive groves — which account for 30 per­cent of the coun­try’s total — to water as needed, Vilar warned that a pro­longed sum­mer of extreme heat could still reduce the har­vest.

“After a cer­tain point, the olive tree pro­tects itself. To enter this self-defense mode, it drops the olives,” Vilar said. ​“This would lead to a lower national olive yield, which would have a neg­a­tive impact on olive oil pro­duc­tion.”

• Copernicus