Europe could soon experience extreme heat and drought typical of the end-of-century climate, and this could happen repeatedly. Although the European climate is potentially prone to multi-year consecutive extremes due to the influence of North Atlantic variability, it remains unclear how the probability of subsequent extremes changes with warming, how soon they might reach end-of-century levels, and how this is affected by internal climate variability. Using the Max Planck Institute Grand Ensemble, we find that even with moderate warming, end-of-century heat and droughts, which were virtually impossible 20 years ago, already reach a probability of 1 in 10 in the 2030s. By 2050–2074, two consecutive years of single or compound end-of-century extremes, unprecedented so far, will exceed a probability of 1 in 10; while pan-European 5-year megadroughts become likely. Entire decades of end-of-century heat stress could begin by 2040, by 2020 due to drought, and with a warm North Atlantic, end-of-century decades starting as early as 2030 will become twice as likely. ( Laura Suarez-Gutierrez , Wolfgang A. Müller & Jochem Marotzke )