Wherever you looked at the thermometer in the country today, a temperature of above 20 degrees could be read everywhere, with the exception of the Wadden Islands. And that is quite special for a day in late October.
Tomorrow it will also be warm, in some places in the country the temperature can rise to 25 degrees.
In ‘t Nije Hemelriek the heat was enjoyed to the full. “Delicious,” said a hiker in the area. “Let it go on like this all winter. Good for the gas bill.”
While most visitors to the recreational lake certainly enjoyed the weather, some people also saw drawbacks. “It is nice in itself, but of course it is also worrying,” said a lady who took a walk. “The environment is changing anyway, and that’s obviously not good.”
But weather forecaster Ronald van der Zwaag is not yet sure whether the connection between these warm days and the warming of the climate can be made. “I find that quite difficult to say for this period. What we do see, and scientists confirm that, is that the winters have really changed.”
“Very often we have westerly winds, with winds from the ocean, and that means we have virtually no cold winters anymore.” Still, Van der Zwaag does not rule out the possibility that a severe winter may come.
Drenthe entrepreneurs do not complain about the exceptional heat either. Ice cream parlor Toscana in Assen seized the opportunity to stay open just a little longer: “We were going to close for the weekend first, but because the weather was going to be so nice this week, we thought: Why not? It’s beautiful weather,” says employee Blenda Ferati. “Ice weather”, she adds with a laugh.
Tomorrow she says she expects even more crowds, but after that the doors of the ice cream shop will really close for this season.