Europe experiences exceptionally warm winter

From the BBC

5 March 2020

The 2019/2020 winter has been the warmest on record for Europe, with average temperatures 1.4C above the previous high of 2015/2016. Winter is defined as the months of December, January, and February. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) says the warmth was very evident in the north and east of the continent where a number of local temperature records were being broken. Last month was also the second hottest February on record globally. It was cooler by only 0.1C compared with the previous high of 2016.

It said the mild conditions this winter led to a number of impacts across Europe, including "difficulties for reindeer herding in northern Sweden, failure of the ice-wine harvest in Germany, and having to import snow for sporting events in Sweden and Russia". The December-February average was 3.4C above the 1981-2010 norm. This made 2019/20 by far the warmest European winter in the data records from 1979 on which the service's climate bulletins are based.

[It has been VERY mild here this winter. We had a few very brief snow flurries – literally minutes long – and a few hailstorms, again minutes long at best, and that’s it. Mostly it’s been rain and the odd bright blue sky kind of chilly day that I love about Winter. Not surprisingly to anyone living here we’ve also just had the wettest February since the 1860’s which has resulted in a lot of flooding in Wales and the North East. Some unlucky buggers were flooded on multiple occasions during the last few months. Sometimes it’s due to developers building on flood plains – the clue’s in the name people! – whilst other times it’s just being unlucky in locations on river banks or coastal areas where erosion is going crazy. Needless to say, things are only going to get worse as Global Warming progresses. Those who still don’t accept the fact of Global Warming just haven’t been paying attention.]