Early spring-weather this week

Spring weather will dominate this week, as the Netherlands continues to experience one of its warmest winters ever.

Weather watchdog weeronline.nl says that as of Monday temperatures may well reach up to 14 degrees Celsius, which is almost five degrees above what is average for early January.

The divergent weather is a direct result of the extreme winter depressions that tormented the north east USA and Canada last week; the low-pressure area there has pushed a southern flow over this part of Europe. The Netherlands will see temperatures that are just below that of Rome, which will bask in 15 degrees Celsius temperatures on Monday.

But while Monday may probably become the warmest January 6^th ever, it will also bring rain throughout most of the day. The record for warmest January 6^th in the Netherlands is held by 1999, when the Netherlands clocked 13,1 degrees. Last Friday already broke records; the 12,2 degrees Celsius was warmer than the record that was noted for January 3^rd 1948.

Tuesday and Wednesday will probably also see temperatures as high as 12 degrees Celsius.

As of Thursday the temperature will drop slowly and the Netherlands will probably then finally experience “normal” weather that is usually expected for this time of the year; “real’ winter weather will however still not come weeronline.nl said.

It said the winter is the sixth warmest winter ever, too warm for real winter weather. “December started too warm already. The average temperature was 5,9 degrees, which made it the sixth warmest December ever. And only one other December saw as much sun as we did last month.”

The weather watchdog said however that this says little about the possibilities for February. “There are enough examples for a soft start in the first winter months and an extreme cold February,” it hinted.