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Record December in France
2015 could become France’s third hottest year as winter heatwave likely to persist until New Year
DECEMBER 2015 could prove to be the hottest on record for France and the world.
Yesterday temperatures hit 16.2C at Le Touquet and 15.6C in Calais while Boulogne-sur-Mer saw minimum temperatures of 12.6C during the night.
A wave of high pressure in the south of Europe is behind the warm weather, bringing with it warm air from north Africa.
Meteorologists from Météo France believe that the situation should continue at least until the end of the year.
The winter heatwave could push 2015 up from its current place of fourth hottest year for France into third place, edging in front of 2003 but behind 2014 and 2011.
The three hottest years in the country’s recorded history would then have all occurred since 2010.
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Across the world the average temperature was 0.87C higher than the average across the 20th century, making 2015 hotter than the previous hottest year - 2014.
The UK’s Met Office has noted that over the first nine months of the year world temperatures broke the barrier of being 1C above the average temperature recorded in pre-industrial times.
Photo:Flickr/alexandre alacchi
