Heatwave drives Germany and Poland toward 40C records

Germany’s weather service put nearly the whole country under extreme heat stress on Saturday as Deutsche Bahn let passengers cancel long-distance trips and Poland prepared for temperatures near 40C. The heatwave, linked to dozens of deaths in Western Europe, was pushing east across the Rhine and into a region where transit systems, hospitals and workplaces are still built for a cooler climate.

In Germany, the federal response was already moving beyond temperature warnings. The Bundestag met on June 25 on several heat-protection proposals, including a plan to make cities more climate-resilient, a push to strengthen care facilities for heat emergencies, and a separate call for stronger heat protection at work. Workplace rules on room temperature advise action once indoor spaces rise above 26C, and require effective measures when they exceed 30C.

Poland was facing its own peak late Sunday and Monday. The Institute of Meteorology and Water Management put the heatwave crest on June 28 and 29, with Lower Silesia, including the Zgorzelec and Jelenia Gora areas, forecast at 39C to 40C and central Poland expected to top 35C. Warsaw has been drafting a national adaptation strategy since a March 24 kickoff meeting, with work focused on vulnerable sectors including spatial planning.

Reuters estimated that at least 101 million Europeans were expected to face temperatures above 35C, including 18 million in Germany and 50 million in France. The European Environment Agency says 46 percent of hospitals in European cities sit in areas at least 2C warmer than the regional average, while only 21 of 38 European countries have heat-health action plans. World Weather Attribution found this heatwave would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change, and that the extreme night-time temperatures were about 100 times more likely than they were two decades ago.