July 2023 was one of the warmest on record in Greece according to the fifty-two weather stations operated by the National Observatory of Athens weather service, meteo.gr.
Average maximum temperatures in July were considerably higher than averages in the years 2010 to 2019. For most regions, it was the warmest July in the last fourteen years, with the greatest deviations in temperatures recorded on the island of Crete. There, average maximum temperatures were 2.8 degrees Celsius higher than normal for the season.
The biggest upward deviation in temperature in the country was recorded between July 13th to July 27th, with the deviation of the maximum values exceeding ten degrees Celsius.
For Thessaly, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Crete and the islands of the Aegean, it was the warmest July since 2010. For northern Greece and Epirus, it was the second-warmest month in the last fourteen years.
In Athens, the average monthly deviation of the maximum temperatures was 1.9 degrees Celsius, with twenty-three of the thirty-one days of July being hotter than normal for the season.
In the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, a total of eighteen days in July were hotter than the average for the years 2010 to 2019. The average maximum temperatures were 0.7 degrees Celsius above normal levels for the season.
The town of Livadia had the largest number of days with a total of thirty days during which above-average temperatures were recorded. Amfiklia and Rethymno both had twenty-nine such days each.
The return to temperatures to around forty degrees Celsius in the following few days and the longer-term forecasts for August, indicate a pattern of above-average temperatures for the month.
August is expected to have temperatures of up to six degrees (in terms of maximum) higher than the most recent average, according to monthly projections. This prediction, however, lacks the precision of shorter-term statements.
The warmest place in Greece in July 2023
The highest temperature in July was recorded in the town of Gytheio, located in the Peloponnese region, at 46.4 degrees Celsius (115.52°F). This set a new record for the highest temperature ever recorded in Greece since records began being kept in 2006.
In Kranidi, also located in the Peloponnese, the second highest temperature was recorded at 45.9 degrees Celsius (114.62°F).
Greece’s July heatwave was the longest in the country’s recorded history, according to a senior official with the national weather institute.
“According to the data, we went through sixteen to seventeen days of a heatwave, which has never happened before in our country,” Kostas Lagouvardos, the director of research at the National Observatory, told ERT television.
Greece has experienced an average of 0.7 heatwaves per year from 1950 to 2020, but this average value has increased to 1.1 heatwaves per year from 1990 to 2020, according to a recent study.
The study published in the international scientific journal Climate maintains that there is a generally increasing trend in all characteristics of heat waves, including intensity, duration, and frequency of occurrence during the period between 1950 to 2020.
The areas of Greece that experience at least one heat wave per year have almost doubled since 1990.
The regions of Greece in which there has been the greatest increase in heatwave episodes are the regions of Macedonia and Thessaly, as well as the western parts of Epirus and the Peloponnese.
Lastly, during the last two decades, a particularly large increase in the number of heatwaves that occurred in the month of June was detected.
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