Weather News

Record-challenging in southern Europe

Ben Domensino, Thursday August 2, 2018 - 09:58 AEST

Another heat record may be broken in the northern hemisphere this week as temperatures soar in southern Europe.

A plume of hot air being carried north from Africa will push temperatures to record-challenging heights across Europe's Iberian Peninsula in the coming days.

According to forecast models, the highest temperatures are likely to occur over inland areas of Portugal on Saturday, where some locations are expected to reach the high forties and could nudge 50 degrees. Temepratures could also reach the mid-forties in western Spain.

Portugal's highest temperature on record prior to this event was 47.4 degrees in 2003, according to the Portuguese Institution for Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA). The highest temperature on record in continental Europe was 48.0 degrees in Athens, Greece during 1977, according to the World Meteorological Organisation.

Parts of Portugal and Spain have been placed on red alert for extreme heat in the coming days. This is the highest category on Meteoalarm's four-tiered weather alerting scale, indicating that weather conditions could be life-threatening over a large area.

The impending heat in Portugal and Spain follows a number of other heat-related records in the Northern Hemisphere this summer. This includes new maximum temperature records in Finland (33.5C), Japan (41.1C) and Algeria (51.3C) during July.

- Weatherzone

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