July broke temperature records

Temperatures recorded last month in Cyprus were amongst the warmest for July, the Department of Meteorology said, adding that several extreme weather records were broken.

In July, sweltering temperatures prevailed on the island and throughout southern European.

The Met Office said this year broke the record for consecutive days with maximum daily temperatures exceeding the threshold for issuing a yellow-level warning for extremely high temperatures.

Athalassa Radiosonde Station in Nicosia exceeded the previous record for consecutive days with a maximum daily temperature over or equal to 40 degrees Celcius for 16 consecutive days.

The previous record was in 2000, with a total of 12 consecutive days of 40C or more.

The highest maximum temperature recorded was 44.6C at Athalassa – equalling the record of July 2017.

Larnaca’s top temperature was 40.4C, and Paphos’ was 38.1C, but they were not record-breakers.

“The overall conclusion is that this year’s July is one of the warmest Julys for the island in which several temperature records have been either equalled or broken,” the Met Office said.

Average maximum temperatures for the month ranged between 2.5C-2.9C above the seasonal norm.

Minimum average temperatures also ranged higher at 1.3C-2.6C in July.