Summer 2024 was the warmest on record for Europe. Temperatures varied across the continent, with close to or below average temperatures in the northwest, while southeastern Europe and northern Fennoscandia saw their warmest summer on record. Parts of Europe saw substantial heatwaves during the season. Southeastern Europe saw up to 60% more ‘warm daytimes’ than average. Southeastern Europe experienced ‘strong heat stress’, where the daily maximum feels-like temperature reached at least 32°C, for around two thirds of the summer period. At 66 days, this is the highest number of ‘strong heat stress’ days on record, by a large margin. The sea surface temperature (SST) averaged over the whole Mediterranean Sea reached record-high daily values in August, breaking the records from July 2023. While most of the continent had a below-average number of wet days, particularly the southeast, other regions, including the northern UK, Fennoscandia and the Baltic countries, saw up to 20 more wet days than average. 35% of European rivers were notably or exceptionally low, especially in the southeast, while much of central Europe saw exceptionally high average river flows for the time of year. The average surface air temperature over European land for summer (June–August) 2024 was the highest on record for the season at 1.54°C above the 1991-2020 average. The three summer months each ranked second warmest on record for the month in question (joint-second for June), with very similar anomalies (1.57°C above average in June and August, 1.49°C in July). Summer 2024 exceeded the previous air temperature record, set in summer 2022, by 0.2°C. European mean surface air temperature anomalies relative to 1991–2020 for each boreal summer (June to August) from 1979 to 2024. Data source: ERA5. Credit: Copernicus Climate Change Service/ECMWF Anomalies and extremes in surface air temperature for June–August 2024. Colour categories refer […]
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