Sands and thunderstorms induced by African heat set to hit Europe
Harsh climate conditions from Northern Africa are impacting parts of Europe, with heatwaves bringing sand and thunderstorms.
Regions like Castile and Leon in Spain and northern Portugal have been issued an Amber storm alert.
Cities like Rome, London, and Paris are also expected to experience elevated temperatures and variable severe weather.
Some parts of Europe are set to receive sand and thunderstorms from the heatwave migrating to the continent from Northern Africa.
Castile and Leon in Spain, and northern Portugal are among the regions issued an Amber storm alert on Wednesday.
The UK and France are also expected to experience their hottest temperatures further north on Friday. Rome will have peaks of 36°C (97°F), London 27°C, and Paris 31°C.
Over the next several days, France and the UK may see lightning, hail, and heavy rain as a result of storm clouds created by the heat pushing moisture high into the atmosphere.
According to the UK Met Office, as reported by Bloomberg, the storms could drop up to 40 millimeters (1.6 inches) of rain in a few hours, which is more than half of the total for June of the previous year.
'These storms are going to have to be high energy,' Alex Deakin, a meteorologist with the UK Met Office, said in a forecast briefing. 'They will drop a lot of rain in a short space of time.'
MetDesk predicts that powerful storms will sweep up a heavy cloud of Saharan dust, which might cover vehicles and buildings and interfere with solar energy generation.
This heat wave follows a period of unstable and wet weather in northwest Europe, which failed to balance off an unusually warm and arid spring.
According to a recent assessment from the Copernicus satellite program, rainfall and soil moisture levels in the area have reached historic lows.
As Europe prepares for increasingly severe weather patterns caused by North African heat and Saharan dust, it highlights the critical need for adaptive measures, enhanced forecasting, and more investment in climate resilience throughout the continent.
According to the statistics, spring river flows in Europe were at their lowest level since 1992, though the southern and parts of northwestern Russia had extremely substantial amounts of rain from March to May.
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