The State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) warns of the arrival of an “extraordinary and intense” warm phenomenon for this time of year, with temperatures more typical of mid-August than autumn. 30 to 32 degrees will be reached in much of the Peninsula, and up to 36 to 38 degrees in the Guadalquivir. A situation only comparable to that recorded in 1950.
“This summer of San Miguel is going to gain strength and in the coming days it is going to become an episode of exceptionally high temperatures for the time of year,” explains the agency’s spokesperson, Rubén del Campo, who added that this will be accompanied of “an almost total absence of precipitation in most of the country.”
Several causes explain this warm episode. Del Campo indicated that one of them is the atmospheric stability caused by high pressures, which favor clear skies. All this happens within an air mass from subtropical latitudes and “extraordinarily warm for the time of year.
This Thursday, 30-32 degrees will be reached in a good part of the Peninsula and 26-28 degrees in the Balearic Islands, increasing to 32-34 in the Ebro valley and southwest quadrant of the peninsula and even 36 degrees in the Guadalquivir valley. Lightly cloudy skies or high clouds are expected, as well as intervals of scattered low morning clouds in the Mediterranean area. Cloudy skies will only occur in western Galicia, where light rainfall is not ruled out.
As explained by Aemet in an informative note, starting on Friday, the rise in temperatures will intensify throughout the country, when a small drop in altitude, coming from tropical latitudes, will move to the west of the Canary Islands and the Peninsula, inducing the entry of a mass of warm and dry air of Saharan origin, with probable haze in the Canary Islands.
The most pronounced thermal rises that day will occur mainly in the western half of the peninsula, with the probability that 36-38 degrees will be reached in the Guadalquivir valley and other points in the southwest of the peninsula. Some records more typical of the month of August.
The peak phase of this episode of high temperatures will occur between Friday the 29th and Monday the 2nd. The agency anticipates that, starting on Tuesday the 3rd, there will be a “thermal cooling starting in the northwest and the Ebro valley.”
