Scandinavian summers - hotter than the UK? (climate, snowfall, hot)
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Used to post here a fair bit a few years ago, CD has locked me out of my account but still the same britinparis here
I've been looking a lot at Windy.com recently and one thing I've been noticing this summer is that Scandinavia - in particular Sweden but also Norway - seem at the moment to just have much hotter weather than the UK and even other parts of northwestern Europe that are much further south.
Looking at average temps and climate data this does seem atypical. However, it does seem more than a one-off anomaly - 10 days ago the UK and northern France were shivering in the late teens with the usual cloudy drizzle. But Sweden was baking under sunny skies and 30C+ temps right up to the Arctic circle. We did join them for a couple of days this week for a brief UK heatwave but we're back down to 20C now and it's still hot in Scandinavia with little sign of the heat going away.
I could sort of understand this for Sweden at least - it is more far "continental" as it is protected from Atlantic fronts by high mountains. But the high temps and sunny skies seem to stretch right over Norway, including its coast - with 27-29C being typical at the moment for spots like Trondheim and Bergen that are just as exposed to the Atlantic. These sort of temps are unheard of in western Scotland and Ireland similarly exposed points much further south.
Well there was pretty strong Scandinavian high this June. One user also mentioned this on the Summer 2020 thread. Scandinavia is just more prone to getting a stable high pressure area than the UK, because the UK is further out in the Atlantic and cyclones pretty much always hit there first. Sometimes Sweden, Norway and Denmark also get warm air shuffled up by an omega pattern over central Europe. (which also brings heat to the UK sometimes). More Eastern areas like Finland and also the Baltic states can sometimes get heat from Siberia if the wind comes from an east-southeast direction.
Seems like we are more and more often getting prolonged periods of high pressure as pointed out. June has so far this year produced 10 days of 30°C+ with another forecasted tomorrow.
This year it has been the area around Trondheim which has gotten the highest temps. Today Værnes, the airport of Trondheim reached 34.3°C! What has also been surprising this year is that many stations are experiencing lows above 20°C which usually only acure in July and August.
We are getting a shift now though, so temperatures next week will struggle to hit 20°C highs most places.
Another thing is the winter which is getting more and more mild. West coast generally doesn’t see much snow historically, but Oslo used to be white from December to early March. This year as an example we had almost no snow and the weather was more like what you would expect in the UK with rain and 5-10°C.
Even in continental borderline subarctic Indianapolis we did not really have much of a winter this past season. It never got below -18 C / 0 F and snowfall was almost 10 inches below average.
Is there an ongoing joke about Indianapolis being subarctic that I missed? I've seen it posted quite a bit.
Yup. Since continental climates can be similar to subarctic climates in the sense that they can have extreme fluctuations in temperatures between winter and summer and are usually only slightly warmer than the boreal forest of Canada, it’s obvious that both continental and subarctic fall into the Group D climates.
Hi Britinparis2, and the others, ...impressively enough, the area around the station of Fluberg / Roen (Norway) is even doing better than parts of the Costa Brava, Spain (for example, the station of Santa Susanna), let alone the UK! :O :O :O Well, at least during this month of June 2020...
I have chosen these two stations precisely because the gap between them seems to be the greatest one and the most impressive! One is close to the Arctic Circle, the other is within the subtropical area...
So far, to 27th June 2020 inclusive, we have 26.5°C (avg. max.) in Fluberg / Roen, and 23.2°C (avg. max.) in Santa Susanna. As to the minimums, Santa Susanna does barely better, so, the Norwegian station still is doing very well in front of its Spanish contender!
Long-term average (max. / month of June) normally indicates roughly around 20 / 21°C in Fluberg. 25 / 26°C in Santa Susanna.
Scandinavian could be hotter than UK, because Scandinavia are shielded by moun6ains. It means more sunshine and hotter temperatures in summer. Stockholm as hot as London in summer, despite higher latitude.
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...impressively enough, the area around the station of Fluberg / Roen (Norway) is even doing better than parts of the Costa Brava, Spain (for example, the station of Santa Susanna), let alone the UK! :O :O :O Well, at least during this month of June 2020...
