Original article

May 27, 2026

Laura Hughes and Attracta Mooney, Financial Times

The UK and Europe have experienced “mind-boggling” new temperature records for May amid a deadly heatwave, reports the Financial Times. The extreme heat has been linked to “about a dozen” deaths across the region, the newspaper says, adding: “Temperatures hit 35.1C in London on Tuesday, breaching the record of 34.8C set the previous day, according to provisional readings from the UK’s Met Office. This was 2C higher than the previous May record set in 1944. A new record was also set in Ireland on Tuesday, and agencies said France could reach new highs under a so-called heat dome where warm air from northern Africa is trapped by a high-pressure system over western Europe.” The FT quotes Prof Peter Thorne, director ICARUS Climate Research Centre at Maynooth University, who calls the temperatures “mind-boggling crazy”.

The Associated Press reports that the UK “smashed a century-old temperature record for the second time in 24 hours on Tuesday”. It adds that London experienced a “rare ‘tropical night’, defined as one in which the temperature does not fall below 20C”. It adds: “Records also fell in France, where temperatures reached 36C on Monday in the country’s southwest and widely remained above 20C at night.” France’s national weather service, Météo-France, said that its “heat dome” was “producing temperatures more than 10C above what is usual for this time of year”, according to the newswire. ABC News says the heatwave has been linked to 11 deaths in the UK and France. This includes seven people in France, five of whom died by drowning and two who suffered heat-related deaths while competing in sporting events, says the Guardian. The Independent reports that four teenagers also drowned in the UK amid the record heat. France24 reports that “restrictions on outdoor work were imposed in parts of Italy”. CNN adds that, in the UK, “a wildfire broke out near Arthur’s Seat, a hill in Edinburgh, Scotland, and hundreds of properties in south-east England were left without water as demand spiked”.

Several publications look into why Europe is experiencing a record heatwave and the links to climate change. BBC News says: “The immediate cause of the heatwave is a ‘heat dome’ – where an area of high pressure gets ‘stuck’ over Europe, trapping warm air underneath. But scientists have little doubt that human-caused climate change – largely the result of the burning of coal, oil and gas – has supercharged the heat.” Richard Betts, head of climate impacts research at the Met Office and a professor at the University of Exeter, tells BBC News: “When we have a heatwave it’s happening more severely, because it’s on top of a warming climate. I’ve been a climate scientist for 33 years and we’re seeing exactly the kinds of things that we were warning back then… [although] these records are perhaps more extreme and coming sooner than we had expected.” The Independent reports that the heatwave “has the fingerprints of climate change all over it”. The Guardian examines why heat can be a “silent killer”. Sky News has a video on whether the UK can expect more record-smashing heat. Inside Climate News and Scientific American also cover the climate links.