The average temperature in the Netherlands was again higher in 2025 than the trend line of KNMI measurements, even if we only look at the last ten years in which the consequences of climate warming are becoming increasingly visible. With an expected 11.4 degrees Celsius, the average temperature is slightly behind the record years 2023 and 2024 (11.8 degrees). Of the five years that were on average warmer than 2025, four were this decade: 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
The year 2013 was the last year in which the average temperature in De Bilt, the most important measuring station of the KNMI, remained below 10 degrees. In 1959 the average rose above that limit for the first time, after which it took until 1982 (and then 1983) before this happened with greater regularity. With the models used by the KNMI, there is only a one in a hundred chance that the average temperature will be below 10 degrees in the future. “In 2013, this was still one in six,” says a spokesperson.
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The climate is changing, world politics is looking away
The highest temperature of the year was measured on July 2 in Beek in Limburg: 39.0 degrees. After 2022, last year was the sunniest year since the start of KNMI measurements of solar radiation. The sun shone for an average of approximately 2,110 hours, the long-term average is 1,774 hours. It was the driest year since 2018, with a national average of 721 millimeters of precipitation (measured until December 15).
1.5 degrees of warming in sight
The European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and the EU’s Copernicus Earth Observation Program expect 2025 to go down as the second warmest year on record, right after 2024. With 2023 added, the three-year average temperature increase now exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius.
If the trend of the past thirty years continues, this center expects the world to exceed this threshold before the end of this decade, while 1.5 degrees of warming was agreed at the climate summit in Paris ten years ago as the maximum allowable warming. Global greenhouse gas reductions are insufficient.
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