STOCKHOLM, April 11, 2024 (AFP) – Sweden has posted its earliest ever start to what it considers to be “summer”, with three southern towns posting average temperatures above 10 degrees C (50F) for five straight days, the country’s meteorological service said Thursday.
“A Swedish weather record was broken on Saturday, April 6, 2024. Each day from April 6th to 10th, the average daily temperature was at least 10 degrees at SMHI’s stations in Malmo, Kristianstad and Karlshamn,” SMHI said on its website.
“The condition was thereby met for meteorological summer at these three stations,” it said.
“This is the earliest arrival date for summer ever observed in Sweden, with statistics that date back to the end of the 1800s,” it added.
The previous record was set in 1906 when summer was officially recorded as arriving on April 10th.
“Inevitably, as global warming progresses, the likelihood of summer arriving ever earlier increases,” SMHI said.
Despite the official arrival of summer, balmy weather was expected to elude much of Sweden through next week, with temperatures forecast to remain in the single digits.