The water temperature of Lake Balaton, landlocked Hungary’s most popular summer destination, exceeded 29 degrees Celsius (84.2 degrees Fahrenheit) on Sunday, meteorology portal Időkép reported.
The high was 29.1 degrees Celsius, recorded by a waterfront thermometer in Gyenesdiás. In the eastern part of the lake, the water temperature was 25 degrees Celsius at Siófok and 26 degrees Celsius at Balatonkenese, according to Időkép.
Lake Balaton still has full beaches, with vacationers flocking to its shores. The lake is notable for its shallow water, with an average depth of only 3 meters despite its large surface area. Because of this, the lake can heat up far faster during extreme temperatures than deeper lakes.
Record hot weather is being experienced across the Northern Hemisphere, with tens of millions of people in the United States battling dangerously high temperatures, and Asia and Europe have not escaped the wave.
Records are being broken in the northwest of China as well, with the China Meteorological Service reporting temperatures of more than 52 degrees Celsius in the Turpan Valley of the Xinjiang Province over the weekend. According to forecasts, the new high is expected to last for at least five more days in the region.
Since April, countries in Asia have been hit by record heatwaves several times, raising concerns about their ability to adapt to a rapidly changing climate. According to climate experts, the heatwave also shows that keeping long-term global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius is increasingly out of reach.
In the U.S., a heatwave is expected to match or shatter previous records in the southwest of the country over the next week.
