In 2022, western Europe experienced its hottest summer on record and widespread dry conditions, with substantial impacts on health, water and vegetation. Here we use a reanalysis to classify daily mean sea level pressure fields and investigate the influence of synoptic circulations on the occurrence of temperature extremes and dry days. Summer 2022 featured an above-normal occurrence of anticyclones extending from the British Isles to the Baltic countries, as well as enhanced easterly, southerly and low-flow conditions which contributed to the observed extremes over southern and western Europe. While the hot summer of 2022 is only marginally explained by circulation anomalies, such anomalies played a key role in the exceptional occurrence of dry days. The comparison with summer circulation anomalies projected by twenty global climate models moreover suggests that future circulation changes will further exacerbate hot and dry extremes over Europe.

Synoptic circulation classifications represent a helpful tool to characterize daily atmospheric patterns that strongly relate to the dominant regional meteorological conditions. As global warming influences the dynamical response of circulation patterns, their changes might enhance or mitigate the behaviour of extreme weather events. We investigate the synoptic circulations linked to short-term meteorological droughts. The automated Jenkinson-Collison classification is used to classify daily atmospheric patterns, based on mean sea-level pressure data. Links between monthly relative frequency anomalies of the synoptic circulations and short-term meteorological droughts were found using the 1-month Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI-1). We evaluate the ability of the historical runs of global climate models (GCMs) to reproduce the observed features in the ERA5 reanalysis during the 1961 - 1990 climatological reference period. The evaluation is performed by a multi model ensemble (MME) approach based on 22 GCMs. Links between the mean directional flow characteristics of the circulation types and dry months were found and are well represented in the GCMs MME. The strongest relationships were found within anticyclonic, easterly and low flow types since these circulation types show higher than normal occurrences during dry events. Inverse relationships emerged from the dominant westerly directional types given their lower occurrences dominated by the dry months.