Historic heatwave hits Europe

Maciamo

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DW : Europeans Sweat as Summer 2006 Prepares to Break Records

BBC News : Heatwave breaks record for July

This is by far the hottest summer I have ever experienced in Northern Europe (Sevilla might have been hotter before). Of course I wasn't there in 2003, the year the beat all records in many countries (38.5'C in Britain !), but this summer isn't over yet and temperatures are already reached new records in some areas. It was 34'C in Wales, 36'C in Paris and London, 37'C in Belgium today, and 38'C in some parts of Germany - the hottest day of the year so far. The London Underground has recorded 47'C inside some stations, and 52'C inside buses in the City !

What surprises me is that this heatwave accompanied by perfectly blue sky has been lasting for about a month (apart from a few storms), which is highly unusual for Northern Europe. We are experiencing global warming in full swing !
 
Maciamo said:
DW : Europeans Sweat as Summer 2006 Prepares to Break Records

BBC News : Heatwave breaks record for July

This is by far the hottest summer I have ever experienced in Northern Europe (Sevilla might have been hotter before). Of course I wasn't there in 2003, the year the beat all records in many countries (38.5'C in Britain !), but this summer isn't over yet and temperatures are already reached new records in some areas. It was 34'C in Wales, 36'C in Paris and London, 37'C in Belgium today, and 38'C in some parts of Germany - the hottest day of the year so far. The London Underground has recorded 47'C inside some stations, and 52'C inside buses in the City !

What surprises me is that this heatwave accompanied by perfectly blue sky has been lasting for about a month (apart from a few storms), which is highly unusual for Northern Europe. We are experiencing global warming in full swing !

Do you know how hot it was over here in Strasbourg today? :bikkuri: It was 41.1 degree Celsius outside where I live. :atsui:Luckily inside we had the blinds down before the sun gets really hot and the inside was kept at 26 degrees Celsius.:relief:

It is said on the news that this heat waves will continue for 2 weeks. Oh god...:sick:
 
Goodness, parts of Europe are suffering from this heatwave. Here in Kansas City it's 38 degrees Celsius or 102 degrees in Fahrenheit. :atsui: Whenever I go outside I have a bottle of water with me. I think I'll go swimming. :cool:
 
I sent an e-mail yesterday to a friend of mine and at the end of it I wrote: Hugs from a warm Scotland!

WARM!!! I cannot believe that is getting so close to 30 degrees Celsius!!!!!

When I first came here in 1998 I wore a jacket during the whole summer and in Winter I was freezing! But in the last two years is getting really worm!!!
 
Aparently it is a cyclic phenomenon. Europe's hottest summers were 1946, 1976, (2003) and 2006. That's exactly a 30 years interval... Coincidence or cycle in relation to the position of the Sun, Moon and/or planets ?
 
Now that is interesting, your last post Mac. I'd never noticed that! Although it figures, when you think about it.
I've already posted a rantette somewhere else about the heat! :blush:
 
This article says that July 2006 has had the highest average temperature ever recorded in Belgium (28.8'C), beating the previous record by over 2 degrees ! That is quite a lot for averages. This July was also the 3rd sunniest ever recorded after 1959 and 1911, with an average of 10 hours of sunshine per day. In lower latitudes where the sun rises later and sets earlier, like in Japan or most of the USA, it is almost impossible to have such a high average in a non desertic region.
 
I heard on the BBC today that this July was thought to be hottest in 300 years in Britain. It was officially the hottest month since records began in 1914.
 
My husband and his colleagues have installed two air conditioners and heaters in one in our apartment over the weekend. It was a lot of work, I have been busy cleaning since they finished. Now our apartment is like a fridge.:relief: :happy: :win:
 
The heat wave is over here in the US, too. We had high 90 F all day, which is very rare in upstate NY.

Incredible thunderstorm we had between 3 to 5 oclock this morning with constant down pour rain made it muggy and intolerable for a lot of people.
 
It has been a really hot July in England! :atsui:
It has cooled down a lot now; the temperatures here are back to normal. (Except in my office, which seems to have collected all the heat in the country! >_<) I did hear from somewhere that there might be another heatwave in August, but I don't think that's official or anything.
It's now started raining quite a lot, but it's not cooling things down much. It's back to normal summer temperatures but quite muggy because of the cloud and rain.

Those air conditioners sound great! :cool: Normally I don't like to work in a place with aircon because it makes the air very dry for me, and people tend to catch each others' germs - but we really badly wanted it this summer. :(

I love thunderstorms... :happy: (as long as I'm not stranded in the middle of a golf course somewhere, of course!)
 
It has cooled down since a week now; I wonder whether the heat wave is finished for the year already... not long right after we installed the aircon? :bawling:
 
We are now in September, so we can comment on August. In Belgium, August has been as grey and rainy as July has been hot and sunny. We surely had to make up for the lack of rain. Temperatures were generally abve 30'C in July, but the average was closer to 17'C in August. One month was the hottest summer month ever for many Northern Europeans, and the next was one of the coldest, and felt more like October than August.

Indeed, it has been reported that August 2006 was the wettest month ever in 100 years in the Netherlands (probably in Belgium as well).
 
The Belgian Royal Meteorological Institute has released the weather data for September, and the record has been beaten again for the average temperature (18.4°C), almost 4°C above the normal average. The average maximum temperatures (23.4°C) have also beaten the previous record of 1929.
 
Global warming is decidedly going at an increasing pace. I do not recognise the weather here in Belgium since the last time I lived here (about 7 years ago). It usually freezes around Halloween/All Saints, and it is 24'C inside my house in the evening with the windows open and no heating ! Today I was in tshirt outside and I felt hot. Officially it was 22'C in the shade, but it elt much hotter in the sun. Can't complain, but what is it going to be in a few years' time ?
 
October 2006 has nearly beaten all historic records of heat. The Belgian Royal Meteorological Institute, that started recording temperatures in 1833, ranks October 2006 has the 2nd warmest ever, with an average of 14.1'C, after 2001 (14.4'C). The normal average for October in Belgium is only 10.5'C. Maximum averages are also about 4'C above the normal average. The average of absolute minimum temperature is 1.5'C, but in 2006 temperatures haven't fallen under 7.5'C in the coldest part of the country until 29th October, so a whole 6'C above normal. Rainfalls and sunshine were normal though.
 
It's gotten colder here recently, with temperatures falling below freezing at night and I needed to put the heating on finally. But now it's warmer again, certainly unusual for this time of year. And I read on BBC News they predict a warm winter ahead.
 
Belgian TV reported today that this Autumn has been and will remain the mildest in 500 years ! Indeed today it has been up to 19'C in some parts of Belgium, and even 13'C in the evening, when it usually freezes at night at this time of the year.

Annual average temperatures are 3'C above averages, with 13.7'C instead of 10.4'C.
 
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The warm temeprature we have these days seem almost wrong to me. I can't help thinking about sudden climate change, you know like hurricane that's more severe than any of the ones in the history.

Right now we have a bright sunny day with up to 52F(11C), and that's 10F higher than the average temperature of this town in November. We used to get snow by now.
 

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