Beyoncé's career in 📷 Solar eclipse guide 😎 Previous US disasters Play to win 🏀
WEATHER
Wimbledon Championships

Dangerous heat wave scorching Europe

Doyle Rice
USA TODAY
Boys play in the fountain of the Trocadero gardens, in front of the Eiffel Tower, in Paris on July 1, 2015. A mass of hot air moving north from Africa has driven up temperatures in Spain, Portugal, Britain and France in recent days.

An intense heat wave is baking Europe this week, with countries from Spain to England setting record high temperatures.

The hot days and warm nights are creating dangerous conditions for those unable to escape the heat, AccuWeather warned.

The heat shows no signs of letting up. "We have a lot of heat-wave days ahead of us," MeteoFrance forecaster Francois Gourand told the Associated Press, noting a wide swath of southern France from Toulouse to Lyon was facing temperatures up to 105 degrees through the middle of next week.

Germany and Poland will begin to feel the worst of the heat wave Thursday, AccuWeather said.

The high temperatures in Europe — following blistering, deadly heat waves in India and Pakistan that killed thousands in May and June — are helping push 2015's global temperatures to the highest in recorded human history, according to the Weather Underground.

Europeans are wary of heat waves, with the murderous heat of 2003 — when 70,000 died — still fresh in people's minds. In France, where 20,000 died in 2003, a nationwide heat emergency plan has been enacted this week, the Guardian reported. This includes opening cooling centers and checking on the elderly and vulnerable.

An all-time record high temperature for the United Kingdom in July was set Wednesday at London's Heathrow Airport, as the mercury soared to 98.6 degrees.

Wimbledon's tennis matches in London were being competed on the hottest day in the tournament's history, which goes back to 1877. A ball boy collapsed in the heat during a match Wednesday and needed to be taken off the court on a stretcher, the AP reported.

Some commuters outside a London subway weren't bothered by the sweltering heat. "I'm loving it. I can't complain," said Maggie Cloud, a university student who planned to relax in the park. "We pay so much money to go abroad to holidays, and now we have the weather here. It's cheaper," she told the AP.

Temperatures climbed to 104 degrees in Madrid on Monday, breaking the city's all-time June high at Gatafe Airport.

The heat is the result of an unusual bulge in the jet stream, which is allowing a massive ridge of high pressure to surge over the continent, bringing in extremely hot air from North Africa.

Even beyond the next few days, the weather pattern across much of Europe will feature warmer-than-normal temperatures through the middle of July with only a few brief breaks from the warmth, said AccuWeather meteorologist Adam Douty.

A bulge in the jet stream is allowing hot air from Africa to flow north into Europe.
Featured Weekly Ad