This week is seeing very mild and settled conditions over most of the continent due to a strong high pressure set over central Europe.
If we look at the daily maximum temperatures (Figure1), we can see that mostly everywhere (except few areas in N Scandinavia and Russia) positive values are observed, with temperatures above 10 °C from the UK to the Balkans. Peaks above 15 °C are observed in France, Spain, Italy and SE Europe, with 20 °C reached in Spain.
This situation has not changed since last week.
Looking at the satellite image (Figure2) the weather patterns over Europe are still the same of last week: clear sky (except some local fog) due to the strong high pressure over central-southern Europe, fronts moving quickly along the edge of the ridge between the UK and the N Atlantic and a low between Scandinavia and Russia causing snow in some places.
Unfortunately the synoptic condition won’t change later this week, with the ridge on W Europe moving north towards Scandinavia and pushing mild air from N Africa and the mid-Atlantic.
Only from the weekend, cold air from Russia will move SE towards the E Mediterranean leading to a drop in temperatures and snow at sea level between E Europe and the Balkans, but elsewhere it will be still mild and sunny.
It’s likely that February will end with dry and mild conditions in many areas, and it will be interesting to see the temperatures anomalies observed overall in this month over the continent.
Regardless of the ‘significance’ of the anomaly, February 2019 won’t certainly be remembered as a cold month in many areas.
