MADRID, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- Spain recorded a temperature of 45.7 degrees Celsius on Thursday, matching the highest temperature ever registered in the country in September, the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) said Friday on social media platform X.
The reading was recorded in El Granado, in the southwestern province of Huelva. It was also the highest temperature measured anywhere in Spain so far this year, according to AEMET. The figure equaled the previous national record for September, set in Montoro in the southern province of Cordoba on Sept. 6, 2016.
The record came amid an episode of unusually intense heat across much of the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands. AEMET attributed the conditions to a mass of hot, dry air entering Spain under the combined influence of a low-pressure system southwest of the peninsula and high pressure over North Africa and the Alboran Sea. Temperatures exceeded 40 degrees Celsius in several parts of the country, prompting heat warnings in multiple regions.
Spain has endured repeated periods of extreme heat this year. July was the joint-hottest July in the country's recorded history, while June was the second-hottest since records began, according to AEMET.
The January-August period was also the hottest on record in mainland Spain, clearly surpassing the corresponding periods of the previous four years. AEMET described the figures as "an unmistakable sign that warming is accelerating in Spain."
The extreme heat has also posed growing risks to public health. Spain's daily mortality monitoring system, MoMo, estimated that 2,149 deaths in August were attributable to high temperatures, the second-highest August figure since records began in 2015. ■