2013 on record as the coldest since 2010

Despite being the coldest year in the past three, 2013 showed that temperatures are trending upward, and a warm New Year without snow is proof of that.

The average temperature in 2010 was 9.7 degrees, with this year’s hitting 10.5, only slightly lower than the 2012 average of 10.6.

However, this year also brought less rain than usual, 816mm, and a lot less than 2012 when 976.5mm made Belgium a soggy place to be.

But less rain didn’t mean more sun. Last year the sun actually shone less than the wetter 2012, with 1510 hours recorded in 2013 compared to 19 more hours the year before.

The biggest weather difference was this past month, when Belgium experienced its sunniest December in 41 years, and the fifth brightest since 1887. The country saw 87 hours and 27 minutes of sun in December, nearly doubling the average of 45 hours, accompanied by warmer temperatures of 6.1 degrees, more than two degrees above average.