Heat in Southern Europe Set to Give Way to Cooler Temperatures

Parts of southern Europe will get a final few days of hotter-than-normal temperatures before a broad pattern of colder weather is poised to sweep in over the continent and the UK.

(Bloomberg) — Parts of southern Europe will get a final few days of hotter-than-normal temperatures before a broad pattern of colder weather is poised to sweep in over the continent and the UK. 

The mercury is set to reach 37C (99F) in Madrid on Friday, Maxar Technologies Inc. said in a daily report. The Spanish capital will then be as much as 4.5C cooler than normal on Sunday, while London will be 3.3C below average, the forecaster said. 

The shift to more normal weather will be welcome news after extreme heat, violent storms, flooding and wildfires rattled the region this summer. Global warming is increasing the intensity of such events as the world’s hottest ever month was recorded in July.

For Friday, red heat alerts remained in place for parts of northern Italy, and western Switzerland, according to national weather services. 

Parts of Greece remained on high alert as fires in northeast part of the country are still burning since Saturday morning. The country’s fire service is combating blazes in Alexandroupolis, the Dadia forest and in Rodopi.

So far this year, wild fires in the nation have burnt more than 1% of the country’s total area compared with an average of 0.33% for the years 2006 to 2022, according to estimates from the EU’s European Forest Fire Information system.

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