Heat waves in June since 2011 in Spain, in graphs

2023-06-26 16:30:09

The eighth heat wave registered in June since 2011 in Spain and which began this weekend will last until Thursday, with days in which up to 44 degrees Celsius (ºC) can be reached at points in the valleys of the great rivers in the center and half of its peninsular, as reported by the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET).

“We have at least three more days of very intense heat ahead of us,” said the AEMET spokesman, Rubén del Campo, who detailed that this weekend temperatures exceeded 42ºC in Western Andalusia and southern Extremadura and highlighted the 43ºC reached in Fuentes de Andalucía (Seville) and Montoro (Córdoba) and even 44ºC in El Granado (Huelva).

In the provincial capitals, Badajoz and Córdoba they tied at a maximum of 42ºC this Sunday and early this Monday, at 6:00 a.m., the thermometers exceeded 25ºC in numerous points in the southern half. For example, in Cádiz at that time the mercury registered 27ºC.

At the moment, it indicates that this Monday there is a warning for a significant risk (orange) in the central area and southwestern quadrant of the peninsula with temperatures between 39ºC and 42ºC in the Sevillian and Cordoba countryside, where the danger is “extreme”, for which reason has activated the red notice because it could exceed 44ºC on Tuesday and Wednesday, two days in which there will be no significant changes in temperatures or, if anything, a slight drop.

“It will not be until Thursday and Friday when the arrival and a mass of cooler Atlantic air will lead to a marked thermal drop and the first heat wave of the summer of 2023 will come to an end,” the spokesperson has advanced.

In addition, it stands out that this heat wave is fundamentally affecting the central area and the southwestern quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula, that is, the Community of Madrid, Extremadura, western Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia, although in other areas such as the Northern Plateau, Aragon, interior of the Mediterranean communities and Mallorca the heat is also intense.

Likewise, they will get rid of the high temperatures in the Cantabrian Sea, which was hot over the weekend but which will register a cooler environment in the coming days, due to the northerly winds that will bring cloudiness and temperatures will remain below 25ºC.

Del Campo has also highlighted that storms will form in the coming days that may be locally strong in points in the center and north of the peninsula, aided by the intense heat. Some of these storms could be of a dry nature, which are those that occur in the north of the Peninsula that hardly leave precipitation but do provide abundant electrical equipment and strong gusts of wind.

For this reason, the spokesperson mentions the risk of fires that will be very high or extreme due to the high temperatures during the first half of this week in the south of the Peninsula and within the Mediterranean communities.

Specifically, he expects that this Monday and Tuesday temperatures will reach 44ºC in the Guadalquivir valley and that there will be strong storms in the center and north of the Peninsula, while temperatures will exceed 34 to 36ºC in the Ebro valley; 38 or 40ºC in the Tagus, Guadiana and Guadalquivir valleys, where it will “probably” exceed 42ºC in Córdoba or Seville, which will contrast with 23 or 25ºC in the north of Navarra, Cantabrian communities and northern Galicia.

The storms on Tuesday will affect mountain areas and surrounding areas in the center, east and north of the Peninsula and some of these storms will be dry. On Wednesday, the spokesman does not expect major changes in the situation and therefore a very warm environment will continue, with temperatures similar to those of Tuesday in a large part of the territory and somewhat cooler in the Cantabrian Islands and again there will be the possibility of storms in areas of mountain.

On Tuesday and Wednesday again, the early mornings will be very warm and it will not drop below 20 to 22ºC in the Mediterranean, that is to say that the nights will be tropical and even in the central zone and in the southern half, and there will even be points where it will not drop below 25ºC, which is called torrid nights.

On Thursday a trough of cold air will approach in the upper layers of the atmosphere that will be accompanied by cooler Atlantic air, which will cause an increase in instability that will translate into more clouds in the skies with rain, also in the north of Galicia and the Cantabrian and the possibility of stormy showers in large areas of the center and east of the Peninsula.

On Thursday the temperatures will drop, especially in the western end of the peninsula and in the Guadalquivir valley it will still be quite hot with more than 35ºC maximum temperature in the northeast, center and southern half of the Peninsula, the same as in Mallorca.

The spokesman hopes that on Friday the temperature drop will be more widespread than could be pronounced in the north and in the center of the peninsula, where more than five degrees Celsius will fall compared to the previous day. “It could even be a cool day for the season in the center and north of the Peninsula,” stresses the spokesman who expects the storms to continue in the center and east that will continue over the weekend.

For the Canary Islands, the spokesman predicts that temperatures will be clearly higher than normal these days, since a mass of warm air coming from the interior of the African continent with suspended dust will reach the archipelago, which will give rise to haze.

In the eastern islands this Monday it will exceed 34º and on Tuesday and Wednesday it will exceed 36ºC, also in Tenerife and La Gomera and again there will be haze. It will be Thursday when locally they will still exceed 34ºC but the temperatures will begin to drop until they are completely normalized the following days.

Heat waves

In this context, the AEMET spokesman explained that since the study of heat waves began in 1975, the AEMET has described twelve heat waves during the month of June, of which seven have been recorded since 2011, while in the previous 35 years there were five heat waves.

According to Del Campo, this means that the frequency of these warm episodes in the last decade triples that of previous years. This is in line with the lengthening of summers, at a rate of about ten days per decade from the 1980s to the 1970s. Thus, it warns that if summer temperatures are reached earlier, it is also more likely that they will be recorded more frequently heat waves in June.