Parts of southwest Germany recorded a high of 19 degrees, while northern Spain saw a high of 25 degrees on the 1st of January.
Winter tourism has also been affected, with some ski resorts in the Alps and French Pyrenees reporting a lack of snow.
Dr Cara Augustenborg, from the Climate Advisory Council, says such warm conditions in January are highly unusual:
"It's the intensity of this heatwave in the winter, and also the extent- it spreads all the way from Russia all the way down to France. It really is far more wide reaching than what climatologists have seen in the past. And it's much more in line with the kind of extreme weather that we have seen in the US in recent years with respect to their own heatwave."
