Weather Calms Europe’s Energy Fears as Winter ‘Beast’ Stays Away

(Bloomberg) -- Mild weather is set to continue across much of Europe this month, soothing energy-market turmoil and mounting tensions over Ukraine.

February is forecast to be warmer than normal, reducing gas demand for heating and electricity generation. Northern and Central Europe will be the mildest, with temperatures as much as 3 degrees Celsius higher than usual in parts of Germany, said Eleanor Bell, a meteorologist at The Weather Company.

Europe has so far escaped extreme cold like the Beast from the East freeze that hit the continent in 2018, helping avert gas shortages and rolling blackouts. The arrival of several liquefied natural gas cargoes from the U.S. has also helped boost supplies, easing concerns that rising tensions between Ukraine and Russia will lead to supply disruptions from Europe's top supplier.

“The expectation is for the first half of February to be warmer than normal across most of the continent,” said Steven Silver, a senior meteorologist at Maxar. Temperatures in second half of the month should also stay above normal, he said.

Both the European and American weather models are pointing to warmer than usual temperatures. That's largely thanks to a positive phase of the so-called North Atlantic oscillation, which normally brings wetter and milder winter weather to western Europe.

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By contrast, the kind of sudden stratospheric warming event that in 2018 unleashed huge snowstorms is nowhere in sight.

“This has a low chance of happening,” said Tyler Roys, senior meteorologist and lead European forecaster at AccuWeather. “We are looking again at a near to slightly above normal month.”

Energy Crisis

Europe is battling an energy crisis that's left hundreds of millions of consumers exposed. A cold and long winter last year left gas storage sites depleted, a supply shortfall that was only aggravated by lower from Russia since the summer. Benchmark European futures are more than four times higher than a year ago.

Warmer weather will help curb heating bills, expected to surge by 50% from April in the U.K.

Average temperatures in northwest Europe are set to reach levels about 5 degrees Celsius above the 30-year normal in early February, according to data from the European model compiled by Bloomberg. While Nordic capitals will see sub-zero temperatures next week, most mainland cities such as Paris and Berlin will remain above freezing in what is usually one of the coldest winter months.

Wind Returns

In addition to milder weather, relatively high wind speeds could also bring relief and put further downward pressure on prices, said Bell of The Weather Company. Generation from wind farms increases the flow of cheaper power to the grid and reduces dependence on fossil fuels like gas and coal.

U.K. wind power surged to a record above 19 gigawatts in the midst of the storm Malik on Saturday, National Grid data show. German wind output rose to about 47 gigawatts on Tuesday, enough to meet about 60% of the nation's demand, according to Bloomberg model using ECMWF data.

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Overall, 45 terrawatt-hours of wind power were generated last month in the European Union, almost a fifth more than in January 2021, according to data compiled by Fraunhofer ISE.