Heatwave Zoe: World's first named heatwave

'Zoe' has become the world's first named heatwave in Seville, Spain.

Seville, Spain is already dealing with its fourth heatwave of the summer so far, now becoming the first place in the entire world to name its heatwave: Zoe.

The city's government launched a new pilot system, ProMETEO, in the event of high temperatures. The system will classify and name heatwaves based on their potential impacts, with each tier allowing for certain mitigation measures to be implemented.

It is the highest tier of the system that will receive the names, which will run in reverse alphabetical order. Next in line will be Yago, Xenia, Wenceslao, and Vega.

Controversially, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) recently denied any plans to name heatwaves, though the Mayor of Seville had other ideas.

Heatwaves don't tend to have set definitions due to their subjective nature, however the Spanish State Meteorological Agency define it as the following:

“An episode of at least three consecutive days in which at least 10% of the stations considered record maximum temperatures above the 95% percentile of their daily maximum temperature series for the months of July and August of the period 1971-2000″.

In this particular heatwave, 'Zoe', temperatures are expected to surpass 43C in Seville, with the average sat at around 36C.