The reason is the unusual cold that has swept across a large swath of the continent and which has sent temperatures plummeting to near freezing.

Icebox July: Parts of Central Europe saw ground surface frost yesterday morning. Source: Wetteronline.de

Yesterday morning ground frost hit parts of Belgium, Holland, Germany and the Czech Republic, as the above chart shows. Unsurprisingly, the media have been curiously silent about it.

Record Dutch July low

It has also been reported that a new all-time July low had been recorded in the Netherlands, according to one source here. The online NL Times here reported, “residents of Eastern Netherlands woke up to a frost covered landscape on Thursday” and that in Twente, “a minimum of -1.6 degrees Celsius was measured – a record low for July, according to Weerplaza.”

The cold has now gripped northern Europe for about a week now, as the mornings of July 3 and 4 saw “at times widespread surface frost in Germany” as well.

The cold is not expected to subside anytime soon. A recent GFS forecast shows it will likely persist across Northern Europe and most of northern Russia for another 10 days.

So don’t expect to see any global warming ambulance chasers to be found there. They were last sighted in Alaska, and may soon be headed to Iran or the “stans”.