Parts of Twente woke to a touch of ground frost on Tuesday, something never before recorded in the Netherlands at the height of summer.
A temperature of -0.1° was briefly measured at 10 centimetres above the ground at around 5.30am, broadcaster NOS reported. According to weather bureau Weeronline, ground frost had never previously been recorded in the Netherlands between July 20 and August 21.
Since meteorologists began measuring ground temperatures in 1971, ground frost in July has occurred just nine times. The coldest reading, -1.6°, also came in Twente, on July 4, 2019 – a month that went on to produce the opposite extreme, with the hottest temperature ever measured in the Netherlands, 40.7° in Gilze-Rijen, following three weeks later.
Ground frost is slightly more common in June, and in 1955 frost was even recorded at the standard measuring height of 1.5 metres, when Witteveen in Drenthe registered -0.8°.
