Record Breaking Heatwave in Europe?

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood.

.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/18/europe-heatwave-rome-temperature-record-covid-protocols/

Most of the so-called reporting of the European heatwave seems to have centred around of temperature forecasts, rather than actual ones, along with claims of “records” and images of people enjoying the sun. Factual reporting appears to have taken a holiday!

Take the Telegraph article above, published on 18th July. It begins:

Rome was among several European regions to breach temperature records on Tuesday as a Covid-style protocols were rolled out across Italy to protect its hospitals from the unprecedented heatwave.

A new record was set in the Italian capital when the local weather agency recorded highs of 41.8C (107.2F), beating the previous record set in June last year by 1C.

The European Space Agency said thermometers could tip 48C in Sardinia and Sicily, while the temperatures in Rome and Madrid could both reach the mid to high-40Cs.

In drought-stricken Spain, temperatures were set to reach highs of 44C in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands while the country is in the final throes of an election campaign before Sunday’s vote.

..

Let’s examine some of these claims more closely:

• A new record was set in the Italian capital when the local weather agency recorded highs of 41.8C (107.2F), beating the previous record set in June last year by 1C.

For a start, the previous record was not 40.8C, as implied. A temperature of 42.0C was recorded at the Ponte di Nona in 2005

.

https://www.ecad.eu/indicesextremes/customquerytimeseriesplots.php

.

As for this week, the temperature at Rome’s Urbe Airport only reached 40C:

.

https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/italy/rome/historic

.

• thermometers could tip 48C in Sardinia and Sicily

And pigs might fly!

Alghero, which is on the north coast of Sardinia, only hit 40C, a long way short of its record high of 41.8C, set in 1983.

.

.

There are of course places further south in Sardinia which would naturally be much hotter, but there is no evidence that any of these were hotter this week than in the past. The BBC is particularly good at finding some obscure little village with a high temperature, without offering any historical perspective to compare it with.

And Sicily? Catania, the island’s biggest city, hit 39C on Wednesday. The record there is 44.4C, set in 1988.

.

.

• temperatures in Rome and Madrid could both reach the mid to high-40Cs.

As we have seen, Rome never got above 41.8C at the most.

As for Madrid, temperatures only reached 39C, nothing out of the ordinary at all for the nation’s capital:

.

.

..

• In drought-stricken Spain, temperatures were set to reach highs of 44C in Catalonia

This is probably the most absurd forecast of the lot, as temperatures in Barcelona did not get above 30C!

.

.

It was hot this week in much of Europe, very hot in places.

But I have found no evidence that the heatwave was in any way unprecedented, never mind the inferno suggested.