A significant portion of Europe will experience warmer-than-normal temperatures in April, continuing a trend that has seen nine straight months of record highs trigger alarms about climate change, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and Italy will have temperatures reaching the highest above historical averages when compared with the rest of Europe, meteorologists said. Conditions in the UK and Ireland will be more in line with usual levels.
The concluding winter has been exceptionally mild across Europe, reducing demand for heating and pushing power and natural gas prices down. Global temperatures continue setting new highs, with February being the ninth straight month to register as the warmest on record, according to Europe’s Earth observation agency Copernicus.
“The forecast for April features further largely warm anomalies dominating the scene,” said Andrew Pedrini, a meteorologist at Atmospheric G2.
Stormier weather is forecast in the early part of the month, calming down as the weeks go on. If that transition takes longer, temperatures may be lower than previously estimated, said Tyler Roys, a senior meteorologist for AccuWeather Inc.
Weaker demand coupled with strong solar generation is causing prices to drop below zero across the continent during some hours. In Spain, solar production reached a record as power prices tumbled near a 10-year low at the start of March.
The warmer winter caused some disruptions for German utility EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG, which said on 20th March it had switched off part of a coal plant due to “water temperature restrictions.”
As summer heat picks up, cooling demand may boost power usage, though this usually starts later in the season and is confined to southern Europe.
WAM