After an extremely hot and dry summer and warm autumn, Europe is facing extreme cold, bringing heavy snowfall and flooding.
Temperatures plunged to a record low of -44.3°C in Finland’s northwestern Finnish region of Lapland early Friday morning, state broadcaster YLE reported, citing the country’s Meteorological Institute.
The consequences have already been felt. The extreme weather also caused transport disruptions in the capital Helsinki and across the country, as the Finnish National Rail Service (VR) suspended train services on dozens of routes. Due to the extreme cold weather, electricity consumption in the country has reached record levels over the past few days and the spot price of electricity is expected to hit a record high of €2.35 per kilowatt hour on Friday.
The situation in other Nordic countries is roughly the same. In Sweden, for example, the sharp cold snap has brought temperatures in northern areas below -40C, with thermometers reading -43.8C at the country’s northernmost weather station in Naimakka. Norway is also expected to see its coldest weather since 2020 on Friday, with temperatures dropping to -20C in the capital Oslo and -30C in the east of the country, public broadcaster NHK reported. Denmark, another Scandinavian country, is also expected to see sub-zero temperatures on Friday after heavy snowfalls on Thursday and Wednesday, according to public broadcaster DR.
Flooding continues in several German states, including Lower Saxony, Saarland and Thuringia, as well as in France’s Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, affecting tens of thousands of hectares of land.
In the UK, hundreds of homes had to be evacuated due to storms and heavy rain, especially in the Midlands, East Anglia and southern England; heavy rain and flooding also affected rail and motorway traffic in several parts of the country.
