After several days of gorgeously sunny skies and warm and humid weather, the Netherlands will see heavy rain and thunderstorms throughout the afternoon on Thursday, May 19. A code yellow weather warning has been issued for the whole country.

KNMI records first official tropical day of the year

The past two weeks have seen temperatures soar across the Netherlands. On May 9, the Netherlands recorded its first official local summer day of the year, and temperatures climbed to above 25 degrees in various Dutch cities over the weekend and at the start of this week. 

This was quickly followed by the first national summer day of the year, as the Dutch Weather Institute (KNMI) saw temperatures reach 25 degrees at 4.30pm on Sunday in De Bilt (a town near Utrecht). Woensdrecht in North Brabant saw the highest temperatures, reaching 27,4 degrees on Sunday afternoon.

Then, with temperatures climbing to 30,1 degrees in the village of Arcen in Limburg on Wednesday, the Netherlands recorded its first official local tropical day of 2022. 

The Netherlands to receive a month's worth of rain on Friday

While temperatures remain relatively high for this time of year, the weather has taken a dramatic turn. The KNMI has issued code yellow and code orange weather warnings for Thursday, with heavy rain and stormy weather on the cards for the whole of the Netherlands. A warning has also been issued for the southern parts of the country on Friday afternoon.

“Over the next few hours, an area of ​​rain and thunderstorms will move across the country from southwest to northeast,” the KNMI writes. “In the southeast, even heavier thunderstorms may develop this afternoon, with a chance of (heavy) wind gusts of 75 to 100 kilometres an hour, hail and a lot of rain.”

Buienradar meteorologist Maurice Middendorp has warned RTL Nieuws that the public should prepare for bucketloads of rain over the next two days. Some towns and cities should prepare for as much as 50 millimetres of rain on Friday - to put this into context, Middendorp points out that the Netherlands usually receives an average of 56 millimetres of rain in the whole of May.