2023-06-23 14:42:20
This weekend begins “an important warm episode, which could become the first heat wave of the summer,” insisted this Friday Rubén del Campo, spokesman for the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet). The temperatures, which began their rise on Thursday with the arrival of the anticyclone after almost a whole stormy June and mild temperatures for the time, “they will continue to rise in the next few days in most of Spain” and, as of Sunday and at least until Wednesday, “values between 5° and 10° will be reached above normal for the season of year in large areas of the center and south of the Peninsula. And hardly any rain, except for the occasional storm in the mountains. These are the keys to the first episode of extreme heat:
Which areas will suffer the most?
The center and the south, as usual in these cases, will suffer the worst side of the episode, but “the warm atmosphere will also be noticeable in the northern half, although to a lesser extent.” The highest temperatures will be recorded in the Guadiana and Guadalquivir valleys, where they will widely exceed 40°, and even 42° in the Guadalquivir.
Not even the Canary Islands will be spared from this episode, where “temperatures will also rise from Sunday and between Tuesday and Thursday the atmosphere will be very hot.” Thus, it will be possible to exceed 34°/35° in large areas of the archipelago.
even torrid nights
The heat will not loosen neither day nor night. The minimums will not fall below 20° in a good part of the Mediterranean area, the central zone and the southern half, that is, that tropical nights will reign in a large part of the country, “without ruling out that occasionally it will even drop below 25°”, that is, torrid nights, in some coastal town or big city in the interior of the southern half or the central zone.
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And how long will this excessive heat last for the time of year?
Possibly, and only possibly because as the days progress the uncertainty in the forecast increases, the temperatures “will begin to drop on Thursday in the Canary Islands and in the Peninsula, a decrease that would be more noticeable in the northern half of the peninsula,” Del Campo glimpses. However, in the rest “the heat will continue, but it will be less intense and more in line with this time of year.”
Is life for life?
A priori, two of the three criteria necessary for Aemet to decree a heat wave are met, the duration ―a minimum of three days is required and there will be at least five― and the extension ―it will affect almost the entire country― . However, questions remain as to whether or not the intensity exceeds the threshold. In any case, if it ended up being a wave, it would have nothing to do with the one in June last year, which was the hardest since there are records.
What are the causes
As always in meteorology, there are several concurring factors that contribute to activating the Iberian oven. The first ingredient is “a stable atmosphere, with high pressures over Spain, which guarantee that the sun shines for many hours, heating the surface.” This surface transmits its heat to the lower layers of the atmosphere and, due to the stable situation, the air does not move and the heat is trapped near the ground, where very high temperatures are reached. Therefore, there is a warming that Del Campo describes as “autochthonous”, to which reinforcements will be added with the arrival of an air mass from North Africa, “also very warm in origin”, which will contribute to further rise plus temperatures.
What is the prediction day by day
After the last stormy tails of Thursday, the weather has already stabilized this Friday. The skies will be clear, although a specific storm cannot be ruled out in the northern and eastern thirds of the Peninsula and in Mallorca. The temperatures “will rise above all in the western half, where there can be four more degrees”. Thus, 38°/39° will be reached in Badajoz, Seville or Córdoba. On the notice mapareas of Andalusia and Extremadura have a yellow alert, the lowest of the three existing ones, which rises to orange, the second level, in the Sevillian countryside.
On Saturday the rise “will be generalized, both in the maximum and in the minimum”, and it will be notable in the Cantabrian Sea, that is, 6°. “It will be a very hot day in the Cantabrian area, where Oviedo or A Coruña may exceed 32°, while it will be more than 35° in the south of Galicia, central areas of Castilla y León and the Ebro valley, as well as in a good part of Extremadura, south of the Community of Madrid, west of Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia, and more than 40° in the Guadiana and Guadalquivir”. He orange notice is extended from the Sevillian countryside to that of Cordoba, the Guadalquivir of Jaén and areas of Huelva and Badajoz, while Castilla-La Mancha, Catalonia, Galicia and Madrid enter in yellow.
On Sunday temperatures will continue to climb, especially in the east. However, there will be a notable drop, from 6° to 8°, in Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria, where they will not exceed 25°. “In the rest, very intense heat, more than 35° in the afternoon, in a good part of the center and south, the Ebro depression and large areas of the northern plateau,” says the Aemet spokesman, to detail that in Madrid, Granada, Huelva, Lleida, Cáceres, Toledo and Zaragoza the thermometers will reach between 38° and 40°. “Again, the Guadiana and the Guadalquivir will be the authentic peninsular ovens, where they could reach or even exceed 42° in Badajoz, Córdoba and Seville,” says the spokesperson. The orange warning affects areas from Extremadura, Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid, while yellow covers Aragon, Castilla y León, the Valencian Community and Catalonia.
On Monday there will be a drop in the northern third of up to 6 degrees in points of Burgos, Euskadi and Navarra, while in the rest of the country “they will not go down or go up slightly.” The night heat will be accused and will not drop below 23° or 24° in Almería, Barcelona, Cádiz, Málaga or Seville. During the day, it will be more than 35° in large areas of the center and south and in the Ebro. It will exceed 40° not only in Guadiana and Guadalquivir, but also in other areas of the southern half and even in the center. “Madrid will not be very far, it could be around 39°, but 40° will probably be reached in Toledo, Ciudad Real, Jaén, and will be exceeded, with 42° or more, in Seville, Córdoba and Badajoz”, he points out.
On Tuesday and Wednesday “there will be hardly any changes in temperatures”, if anything “slight variations of one or two degrees”, so the center and the southern half will continue to suffer the scourge of very intense heat. As of Thursday, there will be “a thermal drop, more pronounced in the northern half”, where some rain may occur. The heat “will continue in the center and in the south, but it will already be more typical of this time.”
In the Canary Islands, the trade wind regime will dominate over the weekend, which will drag clouds to the north of the higher-profile islands. As of Monday, “the winds will turn to the east and temperatures will rise when an air mass from North Africa reaches the archipelago, which will carry suspended dust.” From Tuesday to Thursday, it will be possible to exceed 34°/35° in large areas, especially in south-facing subdivisions. The nights will be very warm and in those south-facing midlands it might not drop below 25° on Thursday or Friday. From there, temperatures will drop with a return of the trade winds.
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