Spain saw its hottest August this year since records began, with average temperature at 25C, the national weather agency said.
"August 2024 was the warmest in history in mainland Spain," the AEMET meteorological agency said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The average temperature was two-tenths higher than that in 2003 and 2023, which were previously the warmest Augusts in the country, it said.
Judging by temperatures recorded so far this year, 2024 could end up being the warmest year in Spain since records began, tied with 2022, the agency said.
Up until now, 2022 was the hottest year on record, with average temperature at 15.7C.
In August, the EU climate monitor, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said that it was "increasingly likely" that 2024 would end up being the hottest year on record worldwide.
It comes as Australia also sweltered through its warmest August on record, with temperatures smashing the long-term average by more than 3C.
Bureau of Meteorology data showed that last month was the hottest August since records began in 1910, with several parts of the continent logging their highest-ever maximum and minimum temperatures.
The area-averaged mean temperature across Australia was 3.03C higher than the long-term average, the bureau said.
From the west coast to the east, record temperatures were recorded, including an all-time winter high of 41.6C at a military base on the rugged and remote northwest coast.
The antipodean winter runs from the beginning of June until the end of August.
In all, this winter was Australia's second-warmest on record, after 2023.
The Bureau of Meteorology said Australia's mean winter temperature was 1.48C above average.
"Both daytime and night-time temperatures were more than 10C above August average for large parts of the country," the bureau said yesterday.
About 18% of Australia is desert, and searing heat is common year-round away from temperate zones.
But data shows average temperatures for Australia steadily rising, with climate change fuelling more intense bushfires, floods, drought and heatwaves.
Australia's climate is heavily influenced by three cyclical climate patterns: changes in Indian Ocean temperatures, changes in a belt of wind that moves between Australia and Antarctica, and changes in Pacific weather patterns known as El Nino and La Nina.
All three of these phenomena are affected by human-induced climate change, according to research by Australia's state-backed Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.
Climate scientists have already predicted that 2024 will be the Earth's hottest year on record.
Temperature records have tumbled worldwide as human-caused carbon emissions have risen.
This week alone, record temperatures have been recorded in Finland's Lapland, Shanghai and Japan.
