With large parts of the world anomalously warm, the cold belt stretching from Greenland, across Scandinavia and on eastward into Siberia and China persisted. In the UKUK The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. this cold belt to the north enhanced the N-S thermal gradient, thanks in no small part to a warm tongue of positive anomalies extending NW from the Balkans, no doubt the result of the many warm sectors that affected southern areas of the UK during the month. Temperature anomalies of 9°C above the LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. across North America were nothing short of extraordinary.