Southern Europe continues to stew.

An intense heatwave gripping southern and central areas of Europe set new records. At 41.9 centigrade Hungary saw its highest ever recorded summer temperature, whereas a record summer high of 44 centigrade was also registered in Bulgaria. Meanwhile not far away in Greece temperatures topped even this with a reported 45 degrees in the Greek capital Athens. In Italy the capital Rome also sweltered.

So far an estimated 500 deaths have been attributed to the unbearable heat and hospitals were swamped with cases of heatstroke and other weather related casualties. In Spain the city of Barcelona was subject to a blackout as the electricity network struggled to cope with increased demand due to the over use of air conditioning. Temperatures at around 40 centigrade were not quite as high as eastern and central Europe, but nonetheless uncomfortable and very different to those of northern Europe. Here floods, high winds, rain and unseasonably low temperatures continued to account for some of the worst summer conditions for over 60 years. So just what was going on?

Inevitably the Global Warmers were chirping with an unbroken chorus of glee, sprouting out to anyone who would listen that this was just a foretaste of the real miseries that would soon strike the planet.

So was this really Global Warming at work? Was this the result of the swirling clouds of carbon dioxide or was there a much more mundane explanation? Turns out there was.

As this site continues to illustrate there is nothing particularly mysterious about these spells of extreme weather. As on other occasions it was simply the work of whatever particular wind direction was blowing where. As can be seen from the picture below the Balkans and Central Europe were under the influence of very hot winds blowing up from the tropics. These then crossed over the deserts of North Africa and came streaming into areas of Europe to register the record temperatures outlined above.

Meanwhile Britain and northern Europe were still under the influence of considerably more cooler winds streaming across the Atlantic, bringing wave after wave of rain laden clouds. The reason that these caused so much flooding was simply because of the swirling nature of the weather system as it remained focused above Britain for a comparatively long time. Not much mystery then and shows how ordinary the explanations are when one looks to science instead of fantasy.