Why winter could be colder in parts of Europe this year

Parts of Europe are facing a colder winter than last year following a summer of extremes across the continent.

France, the UK and Scandinavia are set to be the coldest regions this October with southeast Europe and Spain remaining warm.

Though temperatures are likely to be lower this winter than they were last year – in part, meteorologists say, due to the La Niña phenomenon – they may still overall be warmer than long-term averages.

Western and central Europe are also set to be hit by the tail end of several storms coming off the Atlantic in the coming weeks.

Conditions west of Africa mean that these storms are being forced to track across the North Atlantic and a new system could come every few days until around mid-October.

This is creating considerable uncertainty in weather models and making conditions in Europe difficult to predict over the next few weeks.

What is La Niña and will it bring a colder, wetter winter in Europe?

La Niña is a natural climate pattern which occurs when sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean drop below average – the opposite of the warm El Niño phase. It has widespread impacts on global weather patterns including those in Europe.

Experts at the World Meteorological Organisation have predicted a 60 per cent chance of La Niña conditions emerging between October and February. This winter is expected to see a weak to moderate strength event with the phenomenon weakening early next year.

La Niña generally brings colder than normal temperatures across western Europe with forecasters expecting temperatures will drop as we head towards November and December. Generally, this climate pattern also brings wetter and colder conditions to the Alps which can lead to more frequent and heavier snowfall.

Elsewhere in Europe weather models forecast less snow than normal except for in some northern areas and central areas around the Alps. Northwest and Southeast Europe tend to be drier than usual whereas southwest Europe is generally wetter.

But, as we get further away from the epicentre in the Pacific, the impacts of La Niña and El Niño are more easily disrupted by local weather patterns. This makes their exact effects in Europe difficult to anticipate with no two events completely the same.

The severity of other weather extremes is also being intensified by climate change. Rainfall has become more variable, deviating from historical averages and expected patterns. Human-caused increase in greenhouse gases has increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Sixth Assessment Report.

With these ‘normal’ weather patterns being altered by climate change, it can be difficult to predict what the future holds.