Europe Swelters Under a Heat Wave Called ‘Lucifer’<br />People looking for relief from the heat in countries like France, Spain<br />and Italy grappled for just the right name for the phenomenon — and settled on "Lucifer." The waves of heat sent temperatures soaring to record highs for several days, caused at least two deaths, kindled wildfires and drove tempers through the roof.<br />High temperatures this summer have brought punishing heat to regions in the United States like the Pacific Northwest<br />— where generations had shunned air-conditioning — reaching as high as 104 in Seattle and 107 in Portland, Ore.<br />However, no major incident was reported, and the continuing high temperatures are slightly milder than<br />that experienced in mid-July in Spain, when the temperature reached a record of almost 117 degrees in Córdoba.<br />In Puget-Théniers, a village about 25 miles northwest of Nice in the Alpes-Maritimes Department,<br />the national weather forecaster registered a record high of 104 degrees Fahrenheit on Tuesday.<br />Scorching temperatures also caused dramatic weather breakdowns, including strong storms<br />that brought a whirlwind, as well as hail the size of tennis balls, injuring dozens of people across the country.<br />RICK LYMAN About half of Spain was placed under an emergency alert over the weekend<br />because of the heat wave, as forecasts predicted temperatures of up to 111 degrees Fahrenheit (44 degrees Celsius).<br />JASON HOROWITZ In Romania, two people died from the heat last week — a 45-year-old man working in<br />a field in the northeast part of the country and a 60-year-old man along the Black Sea coast.
