It became the fifth warmest summer observed in history – since 1924 – sharing this place with the summers of 2002 and 2011.
All summer months of 2024 were warmer than normal. June with an average air temperature of +17.0 degrees was 1.8 degrees warmer than the monthly norm, and it was the seventh warmest in the history of observations – together with June 1936. On the other hand, July and August with an average air temperature of +19.0 and +18.1 degrees were 1.2 degrees warmer than the norm for the corresponding month.
The summer started warm as the heat wave of the second half of May continued, but the temperature soon dropped and was below normal for more than a week. The average temperature for the rest of June was mostly above normal, with several heat records set at the end of the month.
In July, the weather was very warm, only on some days at the beginning and end of the month the temperature dropped below the climatic norm. Even though August started with cooler weather, it turned out to be warm – in the second half of the month, the average air temperature rose several degrees above normal. Several daily maximum air temperature records were registered both in July and August.
In total, 50 heat records were broken during the summer. The highest – up to +32.9 degrees – the thermometer rose on June 28 in Jēkabpils and Mērsrag.
With a total of 245 millimeters of precipitation, this year’s summer was 10% wetter than normal. The amount of precipitation was different in different regions of Latvia, in some places the summer was drier than usual, but in parts of Zemgale, Pierīga and Vidzeme highlands it rained much more than normal.
In Kalnciema, the total amount of summer precipitation reached as much as 383 millimeters or 165% of the station’s seasonal norm, and there are gaps in the data of the observation station for two days, so the real amount of precipitation in Kalnciema was probably a little higher.
The beginning of June was wet on average in Latvia, although it was very dry in Vidzeme, in some places in Latgale and on the coast. In the second and third decades of the month, it rained less in most parts of the country, thus June with a total of 54.5 millimeters of precipitation was 22% drier than normal.
July started similarly, the beginning of the month being a bit wetter and the middle of the month drier than normal, but on July 28 and 29, the cyclone brought extremely heavy rain in places. During two days, it rained the most in Zemgale, Jūrmala and Riga, where the amount of precipitation exceeded one hundred millimeters, reaching almost 200 millimeters at the Kalnciems observation station. As a result, the month as a whole, with a national average of 132 millimeters of precipitation, was 75% wetter than normal, making it the third wettest July on record.
With August, the amount of precipitation decreased, all decades of the month were on average drier than normal in the country. August was 24% drier than normal with a total of 58.6 millimeters of precipitation.
In most observation stations, the dryness and humidity index in summer was within normal limits, but in Dobele, Jelgava and Alūksne the summer was moderately wet, in Kalnciem and Zosēni – very wet.
The average wind speed was 2.7 meters per second, which is equal to the seasonal norm. In six days, the wind speed in gusts reached the force of a storm in some places in Latvia, the largest gusts in the network of national observation stations were recorded on July 11 in Bauska – 29 meters per second.
On the other hand, the gusts recorded in the storm on July 28 and 29 were the first case of hurricane-force wind gusts caused by an active cyclone and not a thunderstorm being observed in such a large area during the summer months. In Daugavgrīva, the wind speed in gusts exceeded 20 meters per second for 13 hours in a row.
2024-09-13 08:37:01