The forecasts from ECMWF for the next six weeks show that most of Europe can expect a warmer than normal summer. This particularly applies to the southern parts of the Nordic region as well as to Great Britain. The forecasts show that the temperatures until 31 July will be above normal every single week. – Predicting the weather six weeks ahead is almost like guessing. Two to three weeks from now, we will have a better overview of the big picture, says state meteorologist Terje Alsvik Walløe. Although the forecasts show that in the coming weeks it will still be warmer than normal, Walløe reports that the heat will decrease somewhat. – As early as next week, the temperature will drop somewhat and will get closer to normal, although we will still be on the warm side, he says. According to Walløe, it does not look like June will be as dry as May and June have been. In the summer, high pressure in Norway normally produces hot and dry weather. The maps from ECMWF show that in the week of 10-17 July there will be high pressure over large parts of Northern Europe. Photo: Screenshot / ECMWF Greater risk of forest fires ECMWF is an international weather organization in which Norway is a partner. They present medium-term weather forecasts for the next six weeks. – Uncertainty increases the further we go, says climate researcher Reidun Gangstø at the Meteorological Institute. She says that we can expect the danger of forest fires to persist for a while despite the amount of rainfall that has fallen in southern Norway in the last 24 hours. Maps from Xgeo show which areas in southern Norway are affected by drought. Red are areas affected by drought, while yellow is where it is drier than normal. Photo: Screenshot / XGEO Drought in Eastern Norway The Xgeo drought map clearly shows that it is Eastern Norway that has the most drought. Large areas of the country are colored red, the second strongest degree of drought. – Eastern Norway in particular has felt it. Especially since there was very little rainfall there already in May, says Gangstø. Due to the recent heat, Gangstø explains that the drought has also spread to other parts of the country. She has compared this year’s summer so far with the dry summers of 2018. It was extreme. In a report, the Meteorological Institute described the summer of 2018 as the most extreme forest fire summer in Norway ever. The high evaporation and the spring with little rainfall caused the soil and streams to dry out and the ground water level and water flow to record lows. Agriculture was hit hard, especially because the drought started already in May. – The special thing about the drought in 2018 was that it covered very large areas. The whole country was affected. What is due to drought now is much more local, says Gangstø. 33 days with little rainfall – The drought in 2018 was more intense. At this point in 2018, the groundwater level was low. In many places there was extremely little water in the earth and we are not there today. says climate researcher Reidun Gangstø. Photo: Mai-Linn Finstad – In Oslo we have had 33 days with little rainfall in Oslo now, says Gangstø. It is becoming a very long period. It has also been very hot recently, and many weather stations have shown a heat wave, according to Gangstø. It is unusual for this early in the year. – In several places in Eastern Norway and along the coast down in Southern Norway, there is now less water in the soil than there was at the same time in 2018, she says. Not wetter summers “Warmer, wetter and wilder” is known as the climate scientists’ short version of what global warming will lead to for Norway. Gangstø says that although it applies to Norway as a whole, the picture is not that simple. – For south-east Norway, we do not expect that there will be more rainfall in the summer ahead. So it can increase the risk of droughts, she says. At the same time, it is clear that climate change means that we get higher temperatures. They mean that when there is little rainfall, we will have an increased risk of droughts. Although there will be variations from year to year in the future, Gangstø clearly sees what we must expect in the years to come. – What is happening now is an example of something we must be prepared for that will happen more often in the future, says Reidun Gangstø.
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ECMWF warns of warm and dry weather in southern Norway for the next six weeks – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
