If the trend continues then we can expect sea temperatures around the Med to be close to those in the Gulf of Mexico and we all know what typically happens there in the autumn. It will be interesting to see what impacts these extreme anomalies have over the coming months. I wonder how much the various weather models factor in the sea temperatures. Does anybody know?

One other point to note is the large area of cooler water in the mid Atlantic which has been drifting eastwards. How will it interact with the warmers seas and will this impact UK weather later in the summer? My guess is that the cooler and warmer seas will just mix and if the generally hot weather continues across Europe - this flow will continue to warm up in any case.

https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/cb/ssta/ssta.daily.current.png 

https://expert-member.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=euro&MODELL=sst&MODELLTYP=3&BASE=-&VAR=3&HH=0&ARCHIV=0&ZOOM=0&PERIOD=&WMO= 

Interesting to see that the northern part of the western Med has cooled off significantly over the last few days. Still well above average but no longer the exceptional anomalies of a week ago. Still large areas of 26/27C further south though

Spain has been less scorchingly hot too (at least via glances at 'XC').

I just read the BBC article that David posted in the Unusual Weather thread. The cooling is also due to stronger winds allowing mixing of warmer and cooler waters 

Here in blighty (also part of Europe of course) I have swum 3 times this year of the Dorset coast, including in June, comfortably too. When you consider the sea is roughly as warm in June as it is in December, quite remarkable.

Of course the mixing means the heat is still there, it’s just been absorbed into the cooler water.

Reminder the informal Medicane season starts on 1st September. Medicanes are rare during the summer months but September-October is when they are at their most common.

If these SSTs stay high then it might be an interesting season.

Do you know if there is a correlation between the Medicane season and the European winter? 

I would have thought there would be an asociation, but I doubt there is much causality between an active medicane season and European winters. Rather I'd guess the causality is in the other direction, that medicanes require lots of cold core cutoff anomolies in the med throughout the autumn and going into the winter; and the broad scale synoptics that produce that also have impacts on the weather for Europe as a whole. And medicanes are not uncommon during the winter months, if there are lots of medicanes happening my guess would that it probably means a fairly cold winter for us. I think among the most active winter medicane season was 1996, and I think that was a fairly cold winter wasn't it?

The Mediterranean has been incredible. Some places SSTs 30 or 31C. 😵😵😵