Scandinavia is struggling with an exceptional heat wave leading to record temperatures. In Kevo in Lapland, a temperature of 33.6 degrees Celsius was measured on Sunday, the hottest day since 1914. All heat records were broken in the area last month.
This weekend, the Finnish Meteorological Institute announced that June is the hottest month since the measurements were taken, in 1844. Also elsewhere in Scandinavia, Sweden for example, temperatures are up to 14 degrees higher than usual at this time of year. In Banak, far above the Arctic Circle in the far north of Norway, the mercury rose to 34.3 degrees on Monday, also a record. In fact, Scottish meteorologist Scott Duncan notes that these temperatures have never been observed in Europe above latitude 70 degrees. “Scandinavia has been in the oven for a while,” he wrote on Twitter. Just a comparison: on the same day in 1951, it was well over 8 degrees below 0 in Banak.
Lapland under extreme heat right now. 34.3°C at Banak, Norway ???????? This level of heat has never been observed above 70 degrees north in Europe before.
Scandinavia has been in the oven for a while. A very hot June followed by a hot start to July. Widely 10-15°C hotter than average. pic.twitter.com/dYLHOMrhLQ
— Scott Duncan (@ScottDuncanWX) July 5, 2021
The extreme heat of the last period is a direct result of the heat wave in North America. In parts of Canada and the United States, temperatures reached as high as 40 degrees Celsius. In the Canadian village of Lytton it even became 49.6 degrees. Lytton no longer exists, it was completely wiped off the map shortly afterwards by forest fires. As a result of the extraordinarily high temperatures, hundreds of people dead, mainly the elderly. US President Joe Biden said he was deeply concerned about the dangerous combination of extreme heat and prolonged drought caused by climate change.
In New Zealand, in the southern hemisphere where it is now winter, it was June also the hottest month ever measured. Last week, the United Nations also confirmed that a new record high temperature was reached on the Antarctic continent last year. At the South Pole it became a cozy 18.3 degrees Celsius.
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