Another climate-related record for the Mediterranean basin fell by the wayside on Sunday, with the highest surface temperature ever recorded in the month of June reaching 26.01C.

The data was collected by the Copernicus program and analyzed by Météo-France.

“We have never recorded such a high daily temperature in June, averaged over the basin, as Sunday,” Thibault Guinaldo, a researcher at the Center for Satellite Meteorology Studies under Meteo-France, told the French news agency AFP.

The sea surface temperature in the Mediterranean at present is approximately 3 degrees Celsius higher compared to the seasonal average for the 1991-2020 period.

Meteo-France warned that these unusually high sea temperatures, up to 5 degrees above normal, could worsen “tropical nights” around the region, making nighttime conditions increasingly oppressive during the ongoing heatwave. The agency expects the heat to intensify further across France until Wednesday.