Europe says goodbye to summer

Europe has enjoyed a late blast of summer with some western areas, such as the UK enjoying their warmest September days on record. Temperatures across western parts of the continent reached the low to mid-30s Celsius in places and at times were around 10 to 15 degrees above average.

That all came off the back of the hottest months on record. Just last Friday The United Nation’s World Meteorological Organisation said that August equalled July as the hottest month on record.

This led WMO chief, Petteri Taalas to say: “It is looking likely that 2016 will [be] the hottest year on record, surpassing the incredible temperatures witnessed in 2015,”

We are now looking at a spell of rather more normal weather with temperatures in the west close to their September averages. London and Paris are looking at highs of around 20C over the next few days.

That has come about following the recent thundery breakdown in the weather, where cooler and wetter weather rolled in from the Atlantic finally breaking the feed of hot southerly winds from Spain and North Africa.

The unsettled weather is now rolling across Italy and the Balkans. Severe storms are expected to continue rumbling away from the Adriatic to the Black Sea for a good part of this week.

Many areas are currently reporting daily rainfall totals of around 70mm. The area of low pressure associated with the heavy rain is also feeding cool northerly winds across much of Eastern Europe.

Temperatures in Moscow struggled to reach double figures on Sunday, barely touching 9C. Just a week ago they were up around 20C. The September average is 16C.

The cooler air will reach the Hungarian Plain by midweek and, with the storms then gradually moving through Greece into Turkey, it seems safe to say that autumn has finally arrived across the vast majority of Europe.