Europe’s expanding heat wave fuels record temperatures

The persistent warmth of 2025, and in many cases below-average snowfall last winter, has it feeling and looking a lot like late summer in Europe despite there being at least two months of the season left.

The heat was so expansive that mountaintops that are usually frozen from snowpack saw temperatures above the freezing line.

Over the weekend, a record for June warmth in the French Alps was set when the freezing 32-degree line rose to 1,000 feet above the summit of Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in the Alps. It remained at or above freezing for at least a day, according to weather station data near the peak.

“La Meije looks like the end of August after 2 months of heat,” wrote nature photographer Guillaume Laget, according to a translation of his post on Bluesky. “It’s only the end of June after a few days.”

La Meije soars to about 13,000 feet above sea level.

Human-caused climate change is leading to decreased winter snowfall and increased summer melt.

Glaciers across the continent are rapidly shrinking and disappearing. A study published earlier this year showed that about 39% of ice in Central Europe glaciers has been lost since 2000.