The Italian island of Sicily is 488 degrees Celsius is the highest temperature ever recorded on the continent. The data was recorded on August 11, 2021.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) issued a communiqué on Tuesday (January 30), saying that the automatic weather station in Syracuse, Sicily, Italy, recorded the temperature data, which has been verified by the relevant expert group. The findings were published in the International Journal of Climatology.
Previously, the continent's highest was recorded at 480°C, recorded on July 10, 1977, held by the cities of Athens and Eleftsina, Greece. This data comes from official information and was included by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 2007 when it established its Extreme Weather and Climate Profile, but has not been independently verified by the organization.
Randall Cerveny, WMO rapporteur on climate and weather extremes, said the data was a microcosm of the current climate, with the possibility of more extreme weather across Europe in the future. The survey also shows that there is a worrying trend of continuing to set high temperature records in specific parts of the world.
Many of WMO's assessments are published in peer-reviewed journals and are included in the Official Extreme Weather and Climate Archive**, which includes records of extreme weather events such as the world's highest and lowest temperatures, heaviest hailstorms, and longest droughts, as well as associated deaths.