In the future, the alerts will be issued at higher temperatures.
New criteria for heat alerts:
- Yellow alert - maximum air temperature +27 C to +30 C for two consecutive days or longer;
- Orange alert - maximum air temperature +31 C to +34 C for two consecutive days or longer;
- Red alert - maximum air temperature +35 C and more.
In the past, the highest-level red alert for heat was issued when the forecast temperature was +33 C or higher, but summers are getting hotter.
The average temperature in Latvia for the summer months – June, July and August – last year was +18.1 degrees Celsius, which is the same as in 2018, and both of these summers take third place among the hottest summers since the start of the country's comprehensive meteorological observations in 1924. The hottest day last year was August 19, when temperatures in Pāvilosta reached +33.7 C. In recent years, the summer has often been hot in Latvia. With an average temperature of +18.8 C, the summer of 2021 became the hottest in known history.
The national heat record was set on August 4, 2014, at +37.8 C in Ventspils.
