The winter just ended was the hottest ever in Europe, with 3.4 degrees more than the average for the reference period, the 1981-2010 three-year period. A value well above the global anomaly, of 0.8 degrees. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announces it, a project born on the initiative of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the EU Commission, specifying that the average temperature of the season was almost 1.4 degrees higher than in the previous warmer winter , on 2015/16.
The hottest month, explains 3bmeteo.com meteorologist Edoardo Ferrara, was February, with a thermal anomaly of +3.9 degrees above average. "Temperatures were above average on almost the entire Old Continent - he adds - at times below average only on the British Isles, Atlantic France and the Iberian Peninsula. This was due to an extremely strong polar vortex on the North Pole, which fueled frequent storms Atlantic over Northern Europe, also exposing the central-southern European sector to often very mild winds.
These winds frequently invaded areas usually exposed to Arctic or Siberian winds, such as Russia and Scandinavia, where in fact the heaviest thermal anomalies were highlighted. "Ferrara notes that the real winter in Italy was only in the last two week of March.
"And the winter - continues the meteorologist - was instead completely absent for most of its quarter of competence, that is December-January-February. The winter just ended was in fact the hottest ever on Europe, since measurements are carried out according to Copernicus, which processes billions of data from satellite measurements but also from the ground via ships, planes and meteorological stations located all over the world ".
