While France freezes, Greece is at 27ºC in the middle of January

While Spain was preparing to live the coldest Twelfth Night in 40 years and Western Europe collapsed in the face of a cold and snow stormthere are parts of Europe and the Mediterranean basin that They are practically in summer.

And no, it is not a figure of speech: during last nightthere were people on the Greek island of Crete sleeping with air conditioning.

What has happened? “35 degrees in Algeria, 20 in Russia, tropical nights in Greece, records throughout the central and eastern Mediterranean from Algeria to Turkey (with the only exception of Italy)”, said M. Herrerameteorologist specialized in extreme events. But what is striking is not the description, what is striking is what it means.

Because the map that heads this article is not one of absolute temperatures, but of anomalies. And that can obviously distort the matter a bit. However, the absolutes (with data from the Greek National Observatory in Athens in hand) are amazing: we are talking about 27.5 degrees last night in Falasarma and 25.3 in Neapolis. At night.

That is, we are talking about temperatures similar to those of August. Or worse because, indeed, we are in January (as the rest of Europe is suffering)

The warmest night in Europe while part of the continent remains isolated under snow? It seems so. And not only because of the specific data (it is possible that the record for the warmest night in Greece will not be surpassed: Falasarna suffered one night at 28.3 in 2021), but because but because the heat is as widespread as snow in the West.

We have seen night temperatures of 16 °C in Sevastopol (Crimea) and 13 in Tuapse (Russia). Furthermore, if everything continues as expected, there will be nights at 20°C in the Russian Caucasus and above 25°C in Turkmenistan and the Caspian coast. A real madness that, If Herrera is rightwill go down in the climatic annals of the continent.

The image of a Europe divided in two is tremendous. But the question is why. And the answer is simple: an extremely wavy ‘jet stream’. We already know that the jet ripples, but rarely can you see an ‘S’ of this size. While in the west the atmospheric circulation introduces arctic air; In the east, a gigantic ridge favors south-southwest winds.

The wavy structure of the jet is pumping polar air into France and Saharan air into Greece. Then local effects exaggerate the anomaly. In Spain, for example, thermal inversions place us at -14 degrees, while in Crete the subsidence causes extremely hot and dry air.

Image | Tropical TidBits

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