Global Extreme Weather and Climate Change Dashboard

A magnitude-integrated companion to Europe's event-count index above -- how intense and how long each year's most extreme heat wave was, not just how many qualified. Same HWMId-style construction as the global magnitude index. Unit: magnitude index (dimensionless).

Source: NOAA GHCN-Daily, GCOS Surface Network (GSN) stations, Europe subset

Computing trend…

Same construction as the global Heat Waves magnitude index (see Methodology), restricted to GSN stations within Europe. 2010 ranks as the single highest year in the record (3.49, about 2.4 times the next-highest year), matching the 2010 Russian heat wave (Natural Earth's continent polygons place all of Russia in Europe); 2003 ranks 4th-highest, elevated above its neighboring years, matching the documented August 2003 European heat wave.