Ghent University studies urban micro-climatic differences within Ghent
Wednesday 24 August: Hot end of summer 2016
Up to now summer 2016 did not have many thermal outliers, but this will be compensated for this week. Yesterday
the temperature was not yet able to reach 30 degrees Celcius, but today and the next days we will measure tropical
temperatures in Gent.
Temperature evolution on 23/08/16, the time-axis starts at midnight 22/08 and stops at midnight 23/08.
In the Melle station, which is located in the rural countryside around Gent, the air is cooling much stronger during the
night.
This period is obviously very interesting for our network of weather stations. Clear nights and merely wind form the
ideal combination for considerable temperature differences between the city and the surrounding countryside.
Last night temperature differences up to 5 degrees Celsius were measured (thus Melle 5 degrees cooler than the urban
stations). It is possible that during the following nights the differences will be even larger. Apart from the night
temperatures it will be interesting to see whether there will be substantial differences in the maximum temperatures.
At a later stage the observations of this week will be used as a test case for high resolution weather models over
Gent.
