Across the north of Europe, fall gets off to a warmer than usual start

By Thomas Nilsen, The Independent Barents Observer - October 5, 2016
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Hammerfest in the north of Norway. (Thinkstock)
Hammerfest, in the north of Norway, experienced substantially warmer than usual temperatures this September. (Thinkstock)

Autumn starts as spring ended—with substantially warmer weather than normal. Summers in the northernmost parts of mainland Europe are getting longer.

According to the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, Hammerfest had an average temperature of 9.6 degrees Celsius (about 49 Fahrenheit) last month compared with the monthly normal average of 6.5 C (about 44 F).

Also other places along the coast of northern Norway can look back on an extraordinary warm September.

Both Bodø and Tromsø experienced temperatures 2.9 degrees C above normal, while Longyearbyen’s 4.1 degrees C (about 39 F) average for September was 3.8 degrees C warmer than normal, continuing the statistics of Arctic temperatures breaking one record after the other.

September was also much warmer than average in northern Finland. Records from the Finnish Meteorological Institute show temperatures up to four degrees Celsius above normal.