The French Antarctic Dumont d’Urville Station, on the Antarctic coast due South of Melbourne, Australia, made famous by the award-winning documentary, “The March of the Penguins” has experienced its coldest June ever.
According to a press release from Meteo France, during June this year the average temperature was -22.4c (-8.3F), 6.6c (11.9F) lower than normal. This is the coldest June ever recorded at the station, and almost the coldest monthly average ever – only September 1953 was colder, with a recorded average temperature of -23.5c (-10.3F).
June this year also broke the June daily minimum temperature record, with a new record low of -34.9c (-30.8F).
Other unusual features of the June temperature record are an unusual excess of sunlight hours (11.8 hours rather than the normal 7.4 hours), and unusually light wind conditions. This also lead to a new record for ice anomaly, the ice extent was nearly the size of Greenland larger than normal.
Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment. 