Discovery

Lapland area swelters: Finland’s northernmost Arctic Lapland region has recorded its hottest temperature for more than a century at 33.6 degrees Celsius (92.5 Fahrenheit), during a heatwave that’s been afflicting the entire Nordic country for weeks.

The temperature was measured Monday at Finland’s northernmost UtsjokiKevo weather station near the border with Norway by the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

The institute said there was only one higher historical measurement reported in Lapland — 34.7 C in the Inari Thule area, in July 1914.

The beginning of July has been exceptionally warm in Lapland, one of Europe’s last remaining wildernesses known for its extremely cold winters that attracts domestic and international nature lovers in both summer and winter. The region, Finland’s largest by surface, host records for the coldest temperatures in the nation of 5.5 million.

“It is exceptional in Lapland to record temperatures” of over 32 C, Jari Tuovinen, a meteorologist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, told the Finnish public broadcaster YLE.

He said the current heat wave in Lapland is a result of prevailing high pressure causing warm air in the area. In addition, “warm air has been brought in from Central Europe to the north through the Norwegian Sea,” Tuovinen told YLE.

Nordic neighbors Norway and Sweden have also recently recorded high temperatures in the north, where the Norwegian municipality of Saltdal recorded 34 C this week.

Finland’s all-time high temperature of 37.2 C was measured in the eastern city of Joensuu in 2010, YLE reported. (AP)

A woman walks among the graves of COVID-19 victims at the Rorotan Cemetery in Jakarta, Indonesia, July 7. Across the country, the coronavirus pandemic is again spreading rapidly with bursting beyond capacity and oxygen supplies are running out, leaving people do what they can to cope with caring for sick friends and relatives at home. (AP)