January coldest in 30 years
Ljubljana, 2 February - Slovenia experienced this year its coldest January in over 30 years. The average temperature in Ljubljana stood at -3.2 degrees Celsius last month, which compares to a 1981-2010 average of 0.5 degrees.
Ljubljana
Snow and ice in Ljubljana's Congress Square and Zvezda park.
Photo: Tamino Petelinšek/STA
File photo.
According to meteorologist Andrej Velkavrh, the cold start to the year is nothing to worry about. "If we analysed previous Januaries, we'd see that temperatures jumped up and down considerably. A cold January is a sign that the weather was stable," he told the daily Dnevnik.
Branko Gregorčič of the Environment Agency meanwhile explained that the low temperatures were caused by icy Arctic or polar air that pushed towards the Southern Europe twice last month.
Apart from that, the winter has been quite dry, as only 56 millimetres of precipitation were recorded in Ljubljana in January, while the the 1981-2010 average stands at 75 millimetres.
In itself this would be nothing special, but almost all precipitation happened in 36 hours. "At first, rain fell, then there was snow and then it rained on frozen ground. The soil practically did not soak up any water," Velkavrh also told the paper.
According to accessible data, the coldest January in Ljubljana was recorded in 1880, when the average temperature dropped to -9 degrees Celsius.