The month of January has seen record – breaking temperatures across Europe, according to meteorologists.
Eight European nations at least have records for the warmest January day ever. This “extreme occurrence” is being referred to by climatologists as unprecedented in European history.
January was the hottest ever in Europe
According to meteorologists, temperatures in January are reaching record highs in at least eight European nations.
Data from around Europe have been compiled by climatologist Maximiliano Herrera, who investigates severe temperatures.
His research reveals that record-breaking temperatures are being seen in a number of nations, including Denmark, Poland, the Netherlands, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and the Czech Republic.
In Korbielów, Poland, thermometers read 19 degrees Celsius, which is 18C higher than the 1C yearly average for January and a temperature that is more frequently seen in May.
In the Czech Republic, Javornk, where the temperature typically hovers around 3C at this time of year, recently hit 19.6C.
Between December 31 and January 2, around 950 regional records in Germany were broken at modest measuring sites all over the nation.
The temperature reached about 25C in Bilbao, which was in the north of Spain and the south of France.
An “extreme occurrence” for the weather in Europe
According to Herrera, this is the most extreme incident to have occurred in European history.
“Use the intense heatwave that hit the UK in July 2022 as an example and extend this sigma (magnitude) over a considerably larger area, spanning around 15 countries.”
He continued by saying that this phenomena is the first of its kind in the Europe to match the excesses North America has been seeing this year.
Why are the temperatures in Europe so high?
Researchers are still attempting to determine the cause of the unusually warm temperatures.
According to senior Met Office meteorologist Alex Burkill, “it’s been tremendous heat throughout a broad area, to be honest, unheard of.”
He described how a mass of warm air had developed off the coast of West Africa and had traveled through Europe.
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The Czech Republic, Denmark, and pretty much the entire country of Germany have all seen January temperatures that broke records, according to Burkill.
But according to meteorologist Scott Duncan, even accounting for the extremely warm sea surface doesn’t seem to account for the startling temperature increases.
One thing that climate scientists are certain of is that as a result of global warming, these aberrant heatwaves will continue to occur more frequently and with greater ferocity.
