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ABSTRACT In the summer of 2010, western Russia experienced extreme heat, which was noted for its exceptional spatial spread, long duration, high intensity and impacts. We use an anomaly-based approach to decompose atmospheric variables into daily climatic components and anomalies from two reanalysis datasets. We show that a surface heat wave event results from a downward extension of an anomalously warm air column below a centre of positive geopotential height anomalies in the upper troposphere. Therefore, we use this approach to analyse all summer regional heat wave events with spatial scales larger than 2000 km and durations greater than 5 days over western Eurasia from 1980 to 2014. Our results demonstrate that the rapid increase in regional heat wave events over western Eurasia since 2010 is a direct response to the increasing frequency of large-scale, quasi-stationary positive centres of maximum height anomalies in the upper troposphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]