CNN –
Parts of Europe are experiencing an extreme start to the new year. While some countries have struggled with devastating floods, others have been hit by extreme cold, causing chaos.
Hundreds of flood warnings are in force across Britain after heavy rain hit large parts of the country on Thursday.
A party boat sank on the River Thames in London on Thursday. The boat owners said this was likely due to the adverse weather conditions. The British Maritime and Coast Guard told CNN that everyone has been held responsible.
In the east of the capital around 70 firefighters were mobilized to combat flooding after a canal burst its banks on Thursday evening.
Elsewhere in the UK, a Serious incident has been declared in the Nottinghamshire region due to rising river levels along the River Trent, with local authorities warning that river levels could reach record highs.
Thursday's heavy rains followed Storm Henk, which swept across southern parts of the country earlier in the week, bringing strong winds and rain.
The storm claimed at least one life, according to local police, after a man died when a tree fell on the car he was driving in Gloucestershire, southwest England, on Tuesday.
David Davies/Press Association/AP
The city of Worcester, England, was flooded by the River Severn after heavy rain on January 4, 2024.
Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images
Waves in Newhaven, England, on January 2, 2024, as Storm Henk brought strong winds and heavy rain to much of southern England.
The same storm also caused severe flooding in northern parts of France, leaving hundreds of people without power, forcing more than 370 people to evacuate and causing one death.
According to the national weather service Météo France, the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France was under a “red alert” due to flooding on Thursday, but was moved to the next lower alert level, orange, on Friday.
Local authorities warned people in affected areas to enter their basements, avoid travel and stay away from waterways.
Germany is also severely affected in regions where there have been persistent floods in the last two weeks.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited a hard-hit flood zone in the eastern state Saxony-Anhalt on Thursday.
Around 200 soldiers will begin their deployment in the Mansfeld-Südharz district on Friday and distribute 600,000 sandbags there, a Bundeswehr spokesman said.
The full extent of flood damage in Germany is not yet clear, but more rain is expected on Friday, according to Helge Tuschy of the German Weather Service.
Many of the same parts of northwestern Europe that were flooded this month were also hit by Storm Ciarán, which brought gale-force winds in November and claimed several lives.
Pascal Rossignol/Portal
Rescuers evacuate residents by boat as the River Aa bursts its banks in Arques, near Saint-Omer, after heavy rain caused flooding in northern France on January 3.
Harald Tittel/AP
The high water level of the Moselle reached houses on its banks in Bernkastel-Kues on January 4, 2024.
Climate change, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, is causing extreme weather events such as heavy rain to become more frequent and intense.
As Earth's atmosphere warms, it can store more water vapor. So when it rains, it rains much more intensely. increases the likelihood of destructive floods.
Last year was the hottest on record worldwide.
It's a tale of various extremes across Europe this week, as heavy rain and milder temperatures in some parts contrast sharply with an intense cold snap further north.
An explosion in the Arctic has brought record low temperatures and heavy snow to parts of Scandinavia, including northern Sweden and Finland, and caused chaos on the roads.
Kvikkjokk-Årrenjarka in northern Sweden recorded -43.6 degrees Celsius (-46.4 Fahrenheit) on Wednesday, the lowest temperature at that location since records began in 1887, said Sverker Hellström, a meteorologist at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute.
Snowdrifts had a severe impact on the roads and left people stranded in their cars, Hellström told CNN.
A Portal report said emergency services on Thursday evacuated hundreds of people trapped in their cars due to heavy snowfall overnight.
Anders Wiklund/TT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Snow affects traffic in Stockholm, Sweden on January 2nd.
Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images
Snow and ice in the Finnish capital Helsinki on January 3 as a cold snap gripped the country.
In the far northwest of Finland, temperatures dropped in the municipality of Enontekiö To -42.4 degrees Celsius (-44.3 Fahrenheit), which is the country's lowest temperature in 18 years.
A woman was found dead on Tuesday after skiing in a snowstorm in northern Finland with her child, whose body was found on Thursday, according to Portal.
Scandinavia has been struggling with bitter cold since December. Norway's average temperature in December was 2.3 degrees below average, while Sweden and Finland recorded temperatures up to 6 degrees below average in certain regions.
The very cold weather may also have contributed to the Gulf of Bothnia between Sweden and Finland completely freezing over earlier than usual, said Mika Ratanen, a researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute. It's the earliest winter there is This has been happening since 2011, he told CNN.
“Right now it looks like we're going to have a pretty good ice situation in the Baltic Sea this winter, probably the best we've had in many years,” he told CNN.
Temperatures in the region are expected to remain well below average through Friday and into the weekend before returning to average next week.
CNN's Nadine Schmidt, Pierre Bairin, Maya Szaniecki and Catherine Nicholls contributed reporting