Record highs, lows this winter
Last month was the hottest February since 1977, meteorologists said yesterday, predicting another record hot spell over the next five days. Dimitris Ziakopoulos, head of the National Meteorology Service’s forecast department, told Kathimerini that February was not only hot but dry, with very little rain in most parts of the country compared to other years. December’s weather was the coldest in 40 years and had the second-highest level of recorded snowfall. «Last month’s maximum temperatures in Athens, Thessaloniki, Larissa and Rhodes were far higher than average,» he said. Professor Christos Zerefos, of Thessaloniki University’s atmospheric physics laboratory, said further studies were needed to draw firm conclusions about climatic changes. In Greece, every month from January to October las year was about two degrees hotter than the average for 1930-1960.
