The heat wave begins to subside today and will concentrate the situations of greatest risk in the south and southeast of the peninsula, specifically in Vega del Segura and in the Guadalentín valley, Lorca and Águilas, in Murcia, the only region that presents a red warning today for risk of outdoor activities. The maximum temperatures yesterday were 42.8ºC at the Albacete Base and 42.7ºC in Alcoi and La Almunia de Doña Godina (Zaragoza), with which the record of 47.4 ºC set by Montoro was not exceeded.
Eight autonomous communities (Andalusia, Aragon, the Balearic Islands, Castilla-La Mancha, Madrid, Catalonia, Murcia, the Valencian Community) remain on alert today due to high temperatures. The episode of intense heat reached its maximum peak of 41ºC in a good part of the regions of Lleida and other points of Central Catalonia. However, they have not exceeded 42ºC nor have they broken the records of 43.6ºC in Alcarràs (on June 29, 2019) or 43.4ºC at the Lleida station on the same day.
Lleida reached 40.8ºC, so it had to activate the action plan to prevent the effects of the heat wave, while in Artesa de Segre it reached 39.8ºC. The alert for high temperatures coexisted with another due to the extreme risk of forest fires in a large part of the interior of the peninsula and in the Canary Islands. In Catalonia, although the danger was less, Civil Protection activated the pre-alert of the Infocat special plan for forest fires, in the southern half and center of the territory. For tomorrow, Thursday, only three communities will remain on notice: Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha and the Community of Madrid, although only in Andalusia is it expected to reach 40ºC and none of the alerts is of extreme risk.
The cause of this heat wave is an air mass coming from the Sahara, according to the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service. This organization also warns that, during the next few days, there will be a loss in air quality in Spain, due to desert dust.
Climate change makes a heat wave like the current one in many areas of the Iberian Peninsula at least five times more likely. This is clear from an analysis carried out by Climate Central, a group of scientists and communicators, reports Servimedia. “The heat wave in Spain has been aggravated by climate change, the result of human activities such as the burning of coal and other fossil fuels,” stressed Friederike Otto, Professor of Climate Sciences at the Grantham Institute (United Kingdom).
