A heatwave brings record high temperatures to Europe’s Arctic

The high temperatures are expected to continue.

By Thomas Nilsen, The Independent Barents Observer - July 19, 2018
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A woman enjoys the warm weather while paddling on the Pallasjarvi lake in Kittila, Lapland, Finland July 18, 2018. Northern Finland, Norway and Russia have all seen unusually high temperatures as a heat wave visits the region. (Otto Ponto / Lehtikuva / via Reuters)

Wednesday evening saw record-breaking heat at several locations in northernmost Norway, Finland and Russia.

Svanhovd environmental center in the Pasvik valley, on Norway’s border with Russia, measured 33.3 degrees C (Nearly 92 degrees F) at 5 p.m. That tops the old record of 33 degrees C measured at Banak airport in Lakselv on July 22, 1988. Finnmark is Norway’s northermost county.

Meanwhile Kevo, in Finland’s northeastern corner set all-time high for Lapland with 33 °C. Inari had 31 degrees C (nearly 88 degrees F), while Rovaniemi measured 32 degrees C.

[Wildfires are burning through Northern Europe, including in the Arctic]

A number of observatories in Northern Norway peaked over 30 on Wednesday, the weather service yr.no reports on twitter. Alta reported 33 degrees C, Mo i Rana had 32.4 degrees C, Tysfjord in Nordland county had 33.7 degrees C and even Båtsfjord, on the normally cold-windy Finnmark’s Barents Sea coast measured 30 degrees C.

On Russia’s Kola Peninsula, weather stations recorded 31.7 degrees C in Murmansk at 3 pm. That is slightly less than the previous record of 32.9 degrees C measured on July 9, 1972, regional news online B-Port informs.

Teriberka, the small famous fishing village north of Murmansk, measured 26 degrees C. That was the same as in Alicante, Spain on Wednesday afternoon.

Entire inner parts of northern Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula have experienced an exceptionally heat over the last few weeks, and now Nordland and Troms counties on the Norwegian Sea coast are feeling the heat. Bodø, a town just north of the Arctic Circle, could for the first time since measurements started in 1953 see temperature over 30 degrees C.

The heat wave will continue for some more days, according to yr.no.