High temperatures made many people in large parts of Germany sweat on Saturday and drove them to the outdoor pool.
With up to 37.1 degrees, June 18 was the hottest day of the year so far.
According to the German Weather Service (DWD), more than 37 degrees were measured in the late afternoon at the Waghäusel-Kirrlach stations on the Upper Rhine (Baden-Württemberg) and in Bad Kreuznach (Rhineland-Palatinate).
Behind them, according to DWD information from Saturday evening, were Möhrendorf-Kleinseebach in the Erlangen-Höchstadt district (Bavaria) with 36.8 degrees, followed by Trier-Zewen (Rhineland-Palatinate) with 36.6 degrees and Kahl am Main in the Aschaffenburg district on the Bavarian -Hessian border with 36.5 degrees.
On Sunday it could be even hotter in eastern Germany than on Saturday.
A DWD meteorologist said that around Jena or Cottbus it could be up to 38 degrees warm.
However, the German temperature record is still a long way from all these values: According to the DWD, 41.2 degrees Celsius were measured on July 25, 2019 at stations in Duisburg and Tönisvorst (near Krefeld).
A temperature record of 42.6 degrees measured in Lingen on the same day was later canceled afterwards.
The values from Saturday are also not record values for June: at the end of June 2019, values of around 39 degrees were measured in several places.
Due to drought, there is still a high risk of forest fires in many parts of Germany.
However, the situation with the forest fire near Frohnsdorf near the Brandenburg town of Treuenbrietzen (between Potsdam and Lutherstadt Wittenberg) was considered stable.
The fire site was able to be limited, said Raimund Engel, forest fire protection officer for the state of Brandenburg.
On Friday there was a forest fire on about 60 hectares, meanwhile it is a good 40 hectares.
A federal police helicopter was to dump fire-fighting water over the area until nightfall.
The work of firefighters from several counties is made more difficult because of dangerous explosive ordnance in the area.
In 2018, around 400 hectares of forest were destroyed in a forest fire in Treuenbrietzen.
Flames raged in the forest southwest of Berlin for several days.
Due to the major fire, more than 500 people had to leave the villages of Frohnsdorf, Klausdorf and Tiefenbrunnen.
Outdoor pools reported a rush during the last weekend of the calendar spring.
An employee of the Agrippabad in Cologne said that around twice as many e-tickets as usual in this period had already been sold by noon.
In the Langenfeld outdoor pool near Düsseldorf, ticket sales at the ticket machines were even stopped at noon.
Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach warned to pay attention to older people.
The SPD politician wrote on Twitter: “Please make sure that older people in particular are drinking enough today.
They often feel less thirsty than is good for their bodies.
Heat and lack of fluids can be deadly for the elderly.
Today we are asked to also pay attention to the elderly and disabled.”
Full trains towards the Baltic Sea
While it was sunny and hot in the south, it was clear to cloudy in the north.
The weather attracted many to the coasts.
The railway reported full trains towards the Baltic Sea.
The nine-euro ticket is popular, and the regional trains in the tourist regions are particularly busy, said a spokesman.
In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania it was very tolerable at 22 to 25 degrees, as meteorologist Stefan Kreibohm from the Hiddensee weather studio said.
Spain is experiencing the worst June heat wave since 1950, with temperatures locally exceeding 44 degrees.
The record of this hot period was registered last Friday in Andújar, Andalusia, with 44.2 to 44.3 degrees.
According to the Aemet weather service, it should be particularly hot on Saturday in the regions of Catalonia, Navarre and Basque Country in the north-east and north of the country and in Andalusia in the south.
In France, peak temperatures of up to 43 degrees were predicted on Saturday.
It can be assumed that absolute heat records would be broken, said the weather service Météo France.
"It is a really exceptional situation," it said.
It's different in Greece: in many places people still have to have umbrellas with them,
Heat on Sunday too
In Germany, heat also determines the weather on Sunday.
From the afternoon, according to the forecast, clouds will increase, especially over the middle, in the south-west German mountains and in the Alps.
Local thunderstorms and severe weather are possible.
The astronomical (also calendar) start of summer is on Tuesday (June 21).
Then the sun reaches its northernmost point above the earth and at noon it reaches its highest point of the year.
According to the forecast, on this first day of summer there will be cumulus clouds and local showers and thunderstorms, especially in the south and south-west.
In the northern half it will be 22 to 28 degrees warm, on the coasts it will be a little cooler.
To the south it will be even hotter with 27 to 33 degrees.