2018–19 European winter  The 2018–19 European winter occurred from late 2018 to early 2019. Notable events included the early snows in Spain and intense flooding in Italy, in cities such as Venice, the intense snow storms which affected central Europe in January, the snow storms in Greece over the New Year period, as well as the end of February. As well as severe winter weather, there was also exceptional warmth across western Europe in the last week of February. Parts of France had their warmest February day on record, with temperatures up to at Eus on the 27th. Many places in the United Kingdom also broke temperature records, including the national record in Kew Gardens, at on the 26th. Unlike previous winters, a developing El Niño was expected to influence weather patterns across Europe, although the affect is not fully known. Officially, winter 2018–19 began in the Northern Hemisphere on the winter solstice, which in 2018 occurred on 21 December 2018, and ended at the March equinox, which in 2019 occurred on 20 March 2019. Based on the meteorological definition, the first day of winter is 1 December and the last day 28 February. However, as is often the case wintry weather is not confined to these definitions. Accuweather released its European forecast on 18 October 2018. They highlighted that conditions in North Western Europe and Western Scandinavia would be wet and unsettled, with frequent windstorms in the United Kingdom, Northern France and Western Norway. Similarly, Southeastern Europe was predicted to have occasional storms, with a swathe of warmer than average temperatures covering most of Portugal and Spain, as well as Italy and extending as far east as South Western Ukraine. Most of Eastern Europe, including parts of Scandinavia were predicted to have 'cold shots', this area extended from eastern Sweden down to Ukraine. The most active part of the storm season was predicted to be from January to February, with such cities as Manchester, UK Belfast, UK and Glasgow, UK at the highest risk of impacts from storms. A cold spell with the severity of that of earlier in 2018, The beast from the east, was not expected. Accuweather predicted that in December, storms would be most frequent in Northern Spain and France. Despite predicting above normal rainfall, they didn't expect extreme flooding which was seen in the winter of 2013–14. Storms were predicted to continue into March and April. Unsettled weather was also predicted to last throughout much of the season for Germany, too. Despite unsettled weather in Northern Europe, lasting warmth was predicted in Southern Europe, with drought not being a concern as a result of early rainfall winter.