Winter 2024/25 ended in Slovakia as 14. The hottest winter. The average air temperature was 0.1 degrees Celsius. Peter Kajaba informed the climatologist of the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute (SHMI) at a press conference.
Last December, according to Kajab, after December 2023, the second hottest December with an average temperature of 13.4 degrees Celsius was the world’s second hottest. In Slovakia, the first winter month ended as a temperature normal to above -normal, said a climatologist. They measured a maximum temperature of 14.6 degrees in Štós in the district of Košice-okolie on 28 December.
He also pointed out January, which was the hottest January in the world. Its average temperature was 13.2 degrees Celsius. This month, it was also normal to overnormal in Slovakia. The lowest temperature was on January 4 on Lomnicky shield, minus 20.5 degrees Celsius, Kajaba said.
This February was identified by the expert to be the third hottest February, when the average temperature reached 13.3 degrees worldwide. It was a normal month in Slovakia. They measured the lowest temperature again on Lomnicky shield, but also in Stratená in the district of Rožňava. The highest temperature, almost 15 degrees, was at the airport in Bratislava, he says.
“The pressure excavations that influenced the character of the weather in this winter were manifested by the occurrence of relatively pronounced temperature inversions, especially in December and January,” Kajaba explained. He noted that at Štrbské Pleso reached the air temperature on 27 December 9.1 degrees Celsius and in Hurbanov on the same day was 4.7 degrees. The next day, December 28, the temperature at Strbske Pleso was 11 degrees and in Hurbanov recorded 5.7 degrees Celsius. “These inversions were also reflected in the occurrence of a snow cover,” the climatologist said.
At the same time, he pointed to Hurbanovo, where this winter was seven ice days, when the air temperature did not rise above zero degrees. In the winter of 1962/63, according to Kajab there were 51. The minimum temperature below minus ten degrees Celsius was one day. There were 24 ice days in Oravská Lesná. “Compared to such a winter of 1969/70, such days were up to 71,” said the climatologist. He added that there were 13 days with strong frost in Oravská Lesná, but in the winter of 1962/63 there were 66.
