Italy swelters as Spain, Portugal brace for coming heat wave

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Italy baked in sweltering temperatures that continued to drive deadly wildfires Wednesday, with Spain and Portugal bracing for the arrival of a dangerous heat wave that has grilled southeastern Europe and is starting to push west toward the Iberian peninsula.

A heat wave fed by hot air from North Africa has engulfed large parts of the Mediterranean region in recent days, contributing to massive wildfires and killing dozens of people in Italy, Turkey and Algeria. In Greece, huge wildfires have ravaged forests for a week, destroying homes and forcing evacuations.

Sicily recorded Wednesday what may be a new European temperature record, though weather experts cautioned that the measurement still must be confirmed.

The Sicily region’s agriculture-meteorological information service, SIAS, reported that a temperature of 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.84 degrees Fahrenheit) was reached at the island’s Syracuse station. The agency said on its Facebook page it is the highest temperature registered in the entire network since its installation in 2002.

The highest temperature ever recorded on the European continent is 48 degrees Celsius (118.40 degrees Fahrenheit) in 1977 in Athens.

The Sicily temperature could not be independently confirmed, however, and Italy’s air force meteorological service said it had not recorded temperatures approaching that high on Wednesday but that its stations are in other locations so variations are to be expected.

The World Meteorological Organization said it would examine the reading but Randy Cerveny, the agency’s rapporteur for weather records, called it “suspicious, so we’re not going to make any immediate determination.”

“It doesn’t sound terribly plausible,” Cerveny said. “But we’re not going to dismiss it.”

WMO spokeswoman...