Our 2021 meteorological review showed some interesting temperature extremes:
- Measured temperature maxima: 54.4°C in Furnace Creek, California, USA, on 11. July 2021. The simulation archive showed 47°C at the model grid cell level of 568 meters, which corresponds to 52°C calculated for 67 meters below sea level. Temperatures in Central and South America stayed below 45°C in 2021.
- Worldwide, the highest simulated temperature of 53.5°C occured on 26.July 2021 in Sayyid ‘Alī, Southeast Iraq at 6 meters above sea level . Similar maxima occured in the surrounding region. In Central Siberia, close to 40°C were reached.
- In Africa, temperatures above 50°C occured in the area of North of Morocco, North of Algeria, and also in the Sahara, where they remained on that level for more than a month.
- In Europe, the highest temperatures of 48°C were achieved in the Southwest of Spain.
- In Oceania, the highest temperatures of 47.8°C occured in the Northwestern Australia.
- The lowest temperatures were found in Antartica: on the high plains at more than 3000 meters altitude, temperatures dropped to -82.9°C. The coldest temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere occurred in Greenland (-65°C).
Congratulations to the many users who identified the hottest locations. They all are receiving a free subscription of point+ for 1 year, which enables them to fully browse our archives.
Precipitation results showed the variability of this phenomenon and a deviation from known patterns:
- Highest simlated annual precipitation volume occured in the region of El Ocal, Northern Colombia, with 17'150 mm.
- The region with the second highest volumes was Danatum, in Papua New Guinea with 14'447 mm.
- The region with the third highest volumes was found in Central Costa Rica, with 13'012 mm.
- The Southern Slopes of the Himalaya received less than 6000 mm, due to a shorter Monsoon season in 2021.
Precipitation measurements may of course differ from these regional values. One of the main advantages of simulations is that they can detect the differences over larger areas and time periods.
All these and many more data are directly available to our professional customers via our dataset API.
For users who want to follow more extremes - or just the actual weather - free of charge, you can consult our new page of "Weather Today", where you can now also consult measurements of the last 3 days in the satellite maps - or directly in our weather maps, for temperatures and precipitation.
We plan to continue expanding our offer and hope to serve you even better in 2022.
