More record temperatures after the hottest summer ever in Europe
France and the United Kingdom have recorded unprecedented or very unusual temperatures for a month of September
The influx of warm air over the last few days has also had a significant impact on the UK and France, where some of the month's temperature records have fallen. The Météo France station in Pointe de Socoa, near the Basque Country, recorded a torrid minimum temperature of 26.3°C on Monday night, the highest minimum ever recorded on the French mainland in September.
That same night minimum temperatures were even higher in the Basque Country, where Bilbao airport temperatures did not fall below 27.6°C, and at Monte Igueldo the stayed above 28°C. This data, however, will not stand as records simply because of the different way data is stored data in different countries: while France sets 8 pm as a cut-off for minimum temperatures, the Spanish Meteorological Agency uses official days, that is to say, from midnight to midnight. On Tuesday evening the temperature plummeted following a change in the winds.
The town of Aberporth in Wales this week recorded a minimum temperature of 20.5ºC, which is considered a tropical night. It is the first time Wales experienced a tropical night in the month of September, according to the Met Office. Charterhall, in Scotland, reached 28.8°C yesterday, the highest temperature in September in the country since 1906.
The hottest summer ever recorded in Europe
On Tuesday European data concerning the three months of climatic summer were made public: June, July and August. The most striking result is that for Europe as a whole this summer has again been the warmest ever recorded, a record that has been surpassed several times in recent years.
This year the temperature anomaly compared to the 1991-2010 reference period was 0.96°C, one tenth of a degree higher than the previous records of 2010 and 2018. The strongest temperature anomalies have occurred in the east of the continent, while in France and the areas of the Peninsula closest to the Atlantic the temperature has been comparatively lower.
In Catalonia the average temperature has been 0.2°C above the average of recent years, according to a calculation made by ARA's meteorology section using data from more than eighty Meteocat stations. In this case the reference period is 2009-2020, shorter and more recent. In Catalonia, of the last twelve summers, six have been slightly or markedly warmer than this year.