A tropical night is a term used in many European countries to describe days when the temperature does not fall below 20 °C (68.0 °F) during the nighttime.[1] This definition is in use in countries including the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Serbia, and Croatia. In the United States, by contrast, the term sultry nights is used when the temperature does not fall below 27 °C (80.6 °F) in the Gulf and Atlantic states.

Tropical nights are common during heat waves and occur mostly over seas, coasts, and lakes. Heat gets stored in the water during periods of sunny and warm weather during the day, which is then emitted during the night and keeps the night temperatures up.[2]

United Kingdom

The Met Office began tracking 'tropical nights' in 2018.[3][4] This criterion is infrequently met, with the 30 years between 1961 and 1990 seeing 44 tropical nights, most of them associated with the hot summers of 1976 and 1983. From 1991 to 11 August 2020, 84 such nights were recorded, with 21 of them occurring since 2008. Five nights that stayed above 20 °C were recorded in 2018, and four in 2019. By 11 August 2020, four tropical nights had been recorded for that year, one in June and three in August.[5]

During the July 2022 heatwave, a tropical night recorded overnight from 18–19 July was reported to have been the warmest on record, where temperatures in many parts of the country did not fall below 25°C. The hottest night on record was set in the early hours of 19 July 2022 at Shirburn Model Farm, Oxfordshire, not falling below 26.8°C, smashing the previous record of 23.9°C in the country. This was confirmed on 23 August 2022.

Croatia

In Croatia, this occurrence is usually termed 'warm night' (Croatian: topla noć),[6]: 32 [7] but also tropska noć ('tropical night').[8] A 'very warm night' (vrlo topla noć) occurs when the temperature stays above 25 °C (77.0 °F) overnight.[9] Tropical nights happen regularly at the seaside in summer, and less frequently inland. In the 1961–1990 period, there was an average of 10–20 tropical nights a month during the summer at the seaside,[6]: 32  but less than one per year in most of continental Croatia.[6]: 41  However, they have become more frequent in Zagreb since 2000.[7] During 1990–2014, Zagreb recorded an increasing trend of 19.5 additional tropical nights per decade.[10] In August 2018, the Zagreb–Grič Observatory registered 24 tropical nights, beating the previous record from 2003.[11]

Ireland

In Ireland, two tropical nights were observed at the Valentia Observatory in County Kerry during a heatwave in July 2021.[12] This was the first time ever that two tropical nights were recorded in a row in Ireland.

See also

References

  1. ↑ McGrath, Matt (2 November 2018). "Weather: UK experiencing hotter days and 'tropical nights' - Met Office". BBC. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  2. ↑ "Tropiska nätter" (in Swedish). SMHI. 18 June 2021. Retrieved 31 July 2021.
  3. ↑ "Potential record-breaking heat today". Met Office. 25 July 2019. Retrieved 26 July 2019.
  4. ↑ Knapton, Sarah (2 November 2018). "Met Office starts tracking 'Tropical Nights' in Britain as weather becomes more extreme". The Telegraph. Retrieved 26 July 2019.
  5. ↑ Smith, Daniel (11 August 2020). "Steamy 'tropical nights' ahead as heatwaves become more common in UK". WalesOnline.
  6. 1 2 3 Zaninović, Ksenija, ed. (2008). Climate atlas of Croatia, 1961–1990, 1971–2000 (PDF) (in English and Croatian). Zagreb: Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service. ISBN 978-953-7526-01-6. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
  7. 1 2 "Toplinski val - što, gdje, kada i do kada?" [Heat wave – what, where, when and how long?] (in Croatian). Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service. 13 June 2019. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
  8. ↑ Paić, Vinko (18 June 2021). "Dalmatinci, pripremite se za toplotni udar! Meteorologinja Tea Blažević najavljuje 'tropske noći': Dašak svježine mogao bi donijeti tek maestral s mora". Slobodna Dalmacija (in Croatian). Retrieved 14 August 2021.
  9. ↑ "Dinamičan završetak klimatološkog ljeta" [A dynamic end to meteorological summer] (in Croatian). Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service. 28 August 2020. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
  10. ↑ Gaćeša-Zaninović, Ksenija (23 December 2015). "Temperatura zraka u Zagrebu u razdoblju 2011. - 2014" [Air temperature in Zagreb during 2011–2014] (in Croatian). Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
  11. ↑ Likso, Tanja (August 2018). "Klimatološka analiza" [Climatological analysis] (PDF). Meteorološki i hidrološki bilten (in Croatian). Zagreb, Croatia. XXXII (8): 14–15. ISSN 1334-3017. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
  12. ↑ Best, Barra (23 July 2021). "Extreme heat: Ireland records two tropical nights in a row". BBC News. Retrieved 12 January 2022.

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