Zürcher Nachrichten - France follows England in measuring hottest spring on record

Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8C -- around 1.7C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020.

"The warmest spring since records began in 1900," it said in a bulletin.

All three months were warmer than average but the onset of an "unprecedented heatwave" in late May pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer.

"Our country had never before reached such high temperatures at this time of year; numerous monthly records were broken," the weather service said.

France's soils -- which were very wet at the beginning of spring -- had become "very dry" by the end of the season due to the heatwave and a lack of rainfall, the weather service said.

France, Britain and Portugal all reported their hottest-ever May days as a "heat dome" of warm air from northern Africa pushed temperatures well above normal levels across western Europe.

It was also the hottest ever spring for England and Wales but just the third overall for the United Kingdom, the country's Met Office said on Monday.

In some locations, temperature records were exceeded by 2C as the heatwave helped drive "an exceptional end to the season", the UK weather service said.

Further north, in Norway, the country's Meteorological Institute also announced on Tuesday the country's hottest spring since record keeping began in 1901.

The Scandinavian nation escaped the late May heatwave but average temperatures were still 2.1C above the seasonal norm, the institute said, with particular warmth in the country's north.

Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, in part because it is connected to the Arctic, where bright snow and ice is melting and revealing darker, heat-absorbing surfaces such as land and ocean.

Scientists agree that heatwaves are becoming more frequent and intense as the planet warms due to human-caused climate change from burning fossil fuels.

The World Meteorological Organization said Tuesday there was an 80-percent change of a warming El Nino weather pattern forming between June and August.

WMO chief Celeste Saulo said the world needed to get ready for an El Nino which could "exacerbate drought and heavy rainfall and increase the risk of heatwaves both on land and in the ocean".

El Nino is one half of a naturally occurring climate cycle that can temporarily drive up global temperatures and prime conditions for more extreme weather around the globe.

L.Zimmermann--NZN