Spainish heatwave breaks October records; UK and Japan report record Sept heat
by AFP Staff Writers
Madrid (AFP) Oct 2, 2023

Temperatures across Spain have hit record highs for October with the unseasonable heat likely to last over a week, the AEMET weather agency said Monday.

High temperatures across Spain resulted in three "record days of heat" that began on Friday with the mercury peaking on Sunday at 38.2 degrees Celsius (100.7 Fahrenheit) in the southern town of Montoro near Cordoba, it said.

The previous October record was set in 2014, when the mercury hit 37.5C in the southern town of Marbella.

"On October 1, it reached an all-time high for this time of year in practically the entire Iberian Peninsula," it said on X, formerly Twitter, saying that nearly 40 percent of its weather stations had registered a temperature of 32C or higher.

The situation was similar on Monday, with the southern city of Seville reaching 38.1C, AEMET figures showed.

"But the most extraordinary thing is that there are still quite a few unseasonably warm days left: we could have up to 10 more days of record heat," it said.

Although it has become accustomed to soaring summer temperatures, notably in the south, Spain has experienced an uptick in longer and hotter heatwaves, experts say.

Spain, which had its hottest year on record in 2022, has been in the grip of successive heatwaves this year which got off to an unusually early start in April, exacerbating an ongoing drought.

Experts say the recurring heatwaves, which have been getting longer and more intense, are a consequence of climate change.

The Iberian Peninsula is bearing the brunt of climate change in Europe, with droughts and wildfires becoming more and more common.

UK equals record for hottest September: Met Office
London (AFP) Oct 2, 2023 - The UK matched the record last month for the warmest September since records began in 1884, according to provisional figures released by the national weather service on Monday.

The mean temperature in September was 15.2 degrees Celsius (59 Fahrenheit), equalling the 2006 record, with the Met Office saying the figures were "substantially influenced" by the impact of climate change.

"This September's temperature records are heavily driven by how significantly warm the first half of the month was," said Met Offices scientific manager Mark McCarthy.

The UK had a cool and wet summer, with the hottest day of the year occurring in September for only the fifth day in recorded history.

September also had seven consecutive days where temperatures were above 30 Celsius somewhere in the UK, another record.

"The significantly warm start to September was influenced by high pressure across Europe," McCarthy said.

The weather service added that a September mean temperature of 15.2 Celsius for the UK would be "practically impossible" without climate change.

"September 2023's temperature was substantially influenced by climate change and our attribution study shows how this figure would have been practically impossible in a climate without human-induced greenhouse gas emissions," said Met Office senior scientist Jennifer Pirret.

Japan sees hottest September since records began
Tokyo (AFP) Oct 3, 2023 - Japan has seen its hottest September since records began 125 years ago, the weather agency said, in a year expected to be the warmest in human history.

The scorching September's average temperature was 2.66 degrees Celsius higher than usual, the Japan Meteorological Agency said on Monday.

This was "the highest figure since the start of statistics in 1898", the agency said in a statement.

This year is expected to be the hottest in human history as climate change accelerates, with countries including Austria, France, Germany, Poland and Switzerland each announcing their warmest September on record.

Across Japan last month, 101 of 153 observation locations broke an average temperature record, including in Tokyo, with an all-time high of 26.7 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit), in Osaka with 27.9C and in Nagoya with 27.3C.

The average temperature jump of 2.66C was "extraordinary" and "easily topped previous highs", weather agency official Masayuki Hirai told AFP on Tuesday.

"If this is not an abnormally high temperature, I don't know what is," he said.

French weather authority Meteo-France said the September temperature average in the country will be around 21.5 degrees Celsius, between 3.5C and 3.6C above the 1991-2020 reference period.

The UK, too, has matched its record for the warmest September since its records began in 1884.

The average global temperature in June, July and August was 16.77 degrees Celsius, surpassing the previous 2019 record, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a report.

In September, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told world leaders the climate crisis had "opened the gates to hell".

In his opening address at the Climate Ambition Summit, Guterres evoked this year's "horrendous heat" but stressed: "We can still limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees," referring to the target seen as needed to avoid long-term climate catastrophe.

Related Links
Weather News at TerraDaily.com