“A stark picture”: snow cover in Europe fell 31% in 2025

ORIGIN: https://www.yourweather.co.uk/news/

European climate scientists paint grim picture of the progress of climate change across Europe last year. The continent is the world’s fastest warming.

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent

At least 95% of Europe experienced above-average annual temperatures in 2025, according to data collected by the continent’s climate monitoring experts.

The area of Europe experiencing winter days with freezing temperatures is shrinking. Norway, Sweden and Finland north of 60°N – a region known as ‘Sub-Arctic Fennoscandia’ – saw its longest heatwave on record in July, spanning three weeks.

During that period, temperatures close to and within the Arctic Circle reached and exceeded 30°C, peaking at 34.9°C in Frosta, Norway.

With rising temperatures, and widespread wildfires and drought, the evidence is unequivocal; climate change is not a future threat, it is our present reality.Meanwhile, Europe as a whole saw a record low number of cold stress days, a metric which refers to how cold it feels, rather than the act

ual temperature. Around 90% of the continent experienced fewer days than average with at least ‘strong’ cold stress, where temperatures