Temperature of 19°C recorded in the middle of the night in Poland, 15.6°C in the Netherlands, 14°C in France: 2023 begins with heat records in Europe. Quebec is not to be outdone, and the thermometer has also reached new heights here for New Year’s Eve.
Will 2023 be the hottest year on record so far, like the years 2013 to 2021 which all rank among the ten hottest years on record?
The first minutes of this new year suggest yes.
Heat records were broken (or almost) between December 31 and the 1er January in Montreal (7.7°C), Quebec (6.2°C), Trois-Rivières (5.5°C), Sherbrooke (8.5°C) and Gatineau (4.7°C). Even the North Shore, a northern region generally sheltered from heat waves, broke positive temperature records. It was 5.1°C in Baie-Comeau on New Year’s Eve and almost 2°C in Fermont.
Normal temperatures generally hover below freezing for the 1er New Year, between -5°C and -14°C for Montreal for example.
The next weather system to hit Quebec will leave a mixture of sleet over the entire southern part of the territory. Freezing rain could make travel difficult in many places, especially during Thursday’s morning rush hour.
In Europe, spring in January
Spring-like temperatures surprised European revelers as they celebrated the start of the new year.
“2023 starts strong in Europe with massive thermal anomalies of 10 to 20 ° C this New Year’s Day over a large part of Europe, between northern France and Russia”, summarized on Twitter François Jobard, meteorologist of Météo France.
The official service of meteorology and climatology of France recorded a temperature of nearly 14 ° C in the middle of the night in Paris. This is unheard of since we recorded weather data more than 100 years ago.
Wherever you look on the temperature map for the evening of December 31, records appear: a peak of 24°C in Spain, 12.6°C in Denmark, 15.6°C in the Netherlands and even 19°C recorded in the middle of the night in Poland.
????️2023 starts strong in Europe with massive thermal anomalies of 10 to 20°C this New Year’s Day over a large part of Europe, between northern France and Russia. Poland breaks its national record for January with 18.7°C recorded in the middle of the night (!) in Głuchołazy ???????? #winter2023 https://t.co/9JjGZSzIkx pic.twitter.com/SNyvhlf8Aw
— Francois Jobard (@Francois_Jobard) January 1, 2023
“It’s the whole winter season that is getting warmer,” analyzed the Royal Meteorological Institute of the Netherlands. “The number of “mild” winter days [à plus de 10 °C] has nearly doubled from about 10 days before 1990 to about 19 days under the current climate (1991-2020). »
Warmer and warmer years
Unlike heat waves, which increase in number and intensity each year, cold waves are becoming increasingly rare on the Old Continent. “The last nationwide cold spell dates back to February 2012… almost 10 years ago,” noted Météo France in its end-of-year bulletin.
“Whatever the temperatures of our month of December, the year 2022 will be the hottest that France has ever measured”, it adds, while the average temperature exceeded by 2 ° C the historical averages on the whole year. The average annual rainfall in France should show a deficit of 15 to 25% for the year 2022.
The Spanish agency makes the same assessment. “The year 2022 is the hottest and one of the driest of the historical series in Spain”, specify the Spanish meteorologists. […] The quarter consisting of September, October and November, with an average temperature of 16.3°C, was 2°C warmer than the normal average. »
The World Meteorological Organization estimates that in 2022, “the average global temperature [a dépassé] about 1.15°C the pre-industrial average”. 2022 is likely to be “only” the fifth or sixth hottest year on record, but “it’s only a matter of time before another record year arrives.”