Tropical temperatures were reached last weekend. There has been a regional heat wave in some parts of the Netherlands. It was close to a national heat wave. Thunderstorms provided cooling Monday night and yesterday’s rain caused some problems in Limburg.

You can see pictures of the floods in Limburg in this video:

“In some places more than 30 millimeters of rain fell. That’s a lot,” says Buienradar’s Mark de Jong. “But we’ve seen the decline now. Because we can enjoy nice weather until Sunday evening.”

The temperature is rising

Today everything still needs to go a little further, but starting tomorrow the temperatures will rise. Tomorrow the temperature will be 21 degrees, and on Friday it will rise to 24 degrees. “Saturday will be the hottest day,” says De Jong. “Then the temperature will be 25 degrees in the center of the country. It will be a little warmer in the south and east. The temperature will be between 23 and 24 degrees on Sunday.”

After the weekend, autumn is approaching. The wind will blow stronger and the chance of rain will increase. Thunderstorms are possible throughout Monday and may continue to occur on Tuesday. But according to De Jong, it could be nice again during September.

Summer is moving

September is the new June. KNMI concluded this Modern blog. The temperature (14.7 degrees) in September in the current climate (1991-2020) is higher than the temperature (14.4 degrees) in June in the climate of the early last century (1901-1930). The number of summer days in these two periods is also comparable. “So September is increasingly becoming a true summer month, rather than an autumn month,” says de Jong.

This shift could have consequences for severe weather later in the year, for example. The extreme weather we saw this summer in Greece and Libya, for example, is caused by warm sea water. The warm sea water evaporates and the clouds feed on it. The longer it stays warm, the longer the sea water stays warm. So it can still rain heavily in fall or winter.