December, and winter, are officially here and Christmas is just around the corner, but you wouldn't know it if it weren't for the decorations in the streets and shop windows.
Temperatures are unseasonably high, there has been no sign of rain and the forecast is for no rain, weathermen said yesterday.
"The prognosis at the moment is not so optimistic," said meteorological service official Marios Theofilou. Temperatures yesterday reached 27 degrees Centigrade inland, 25 on the coast and 19 in the higher regions. They are not expected to be any different today.Theofilou said Cyprus had experienced such high temperatures before during November. November 2007 was also a warmer-than-average month. Before that, in 1948 temperatures reached 33 degrees in November.
"What concerns us is that the days with high temperatures are continuous. The whole month has had exceptionally high temperatures," Theofilou said.
The figures came as the European Environment Agency warned children born in southern Europe today will see temperatures rise 7 Celsius in their lifetime. It said that the number of days hotter than 40.7 Celsius will double along Mediterranean coasts by 2080.
EEA director Jacqueline McGlade said by 2080 people living in southern Europe will experience temperatures of more than 40 degrees centigrade on a daily basis during the summer.
In Cyprus last month inland and coastal temperatures were between five and seven degrees higher than normal while in higher regions they were up to 10 degrees higher.
According to the service's preliminary data for November, gathered by three stations - Paphos and Larnaca airports, and Athalassa in Nicosia - rainfall was zero, with only traces recorded mid-month in Paphos and Nicosia.
In the same month last year, Paphos recorded 81.3mm of rain, followed by Larnaca with 23.3mm and Nicosia with 21.9mm.
The average maximum temperatures were 25.7 degrees in Paphos, 27.1 in Nicosia, and 26.3 in Larnaca, compared with 22.9, 21.9 and 23.3 respectively during the same month in 2009.
The highest temperature for the month was recorded in Paphos - 31.6 degrees -- and the lowest in Nicosia, 8.9 degrees.
The highest temperature in the capital was 30.6 degrees and in Larnaca it was 28.6 degrees last month.
Source: Cyprus-Mail