The home-wrecking storms and floods that swept Europe last year affected 413,000 people, a report has found, as fossil fuel pollution forced the continent to suffer through its hottest year on record.
The two most destructive examples were the deluges that tore through central Europe in September and eastern Spain in October, which accounted for more than 250 of the 335 flooding deaths recorded across the continent in 2024.
South-eastern Europe experienced its longest heatwave on record in July 2024, searing more than half the region for 13 days in a row, while high heat across the continent contributed to destructive wildfires that affected 42,000 people. About one-quarter of Europe’s burnt area last year came from devastating wildfires in Portugal in September, which burned about 110,000 hectares in a single week.
Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London and co-lead of World Weather Attribution, who was not involved in the study, said the report “lays bare the pain Europe’s population is already suffering from extreme weather” at 1.3˚C of global heating above preindustrial levels.
“We’re on track to experience 3˚C by 2100,” she said. “You only need to cast your mind back to the floods in Spain, the fires in Portugal, or the summer heatwaves last year to know how devastating this level of warming would be.”
The report authors highlighted an “unusual” contrast between western and eastern Europe, with the west tending to be wet and cloudy and the east warm and sunny. River flows tended to be above average in western countries and below average in eastern ones. In several months last year, the Thames in the UK and the Loire in France experienced their highest flows in a 33-year record.
Europe is warming twice as fast as the global average.