Spain Records Highest May Heat-Related Deaths Since 2015

Spain has registered its highest number of heat-related deaths for the month of May since records began in 2015, according to the Health Ministry. In May 2026, an estimated 101 deaths were directly attributed to high temperatures. This figure represents a stark increase, being 3.6 times higher than the average for May over the past decade.

The data, compiled by Spain's daily mortality monitoring system (MoMo), highlights the severe health consequences of extreme heat, even before the official start of the Northern Hemisphere's summer. The Ministry emphasized that the risk of mortality escalates significantly with rising temperatures, noting that for each degree Celsius the temperature exceeds the health risk threshold, the risk of death increases by 9.1% to 10.7%.

Between 2015 and 2025, an estimated 27,564 deaths in Spain were linked to high temperatures. The year 2022 stands out as the worst on record, with 4,789 heat-related fatalities, followed by 2025 with 3,832 deaths. These statistics underscore the growing public health challenge posed by climate change and increasingly frequent and intense heatwaves across Europe.