In its monthly report, published on Monday 8 May, the European climate observation programme, Copernicus, reported an “exceptionally” warm April in south-western Europe. While this was the fourth warmest April globally, the average European temperature was 0.23°C above the 1991-2020 baseline, with Spain and Portugal and parts of North Africa recording their warmest April since 1950, uniformly reaching 4ºC above average. On 27 April, a temperature of 38.8°C was recorded in Córdoba, the highest temperature measured in April in Spain.
In addition, the Iberian Peninsula, the southern Alps and the Mediterranean regions of France experienced exceptionally dry conditions, as did north-western Scandinavia and the Baltic States.
Nevertheless, a strong contrast in air temperatures was observed across Europe.
April 2023 was a colder-than-normal month in a strip from the UK to south-eastern Europe and wetter-than-average over a wide area from the west to the east, from Ireland, the UK and France through Central Europe to the Italian peninsula, the Balkans and the Black Sea.
To read the monthly newsletter: https://aeur.eu/f/6ry (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)