The next quarter, the months of April, May and June, will be warmer than normal throughout Spain after the last winter became the warmest in the country as a whole since at least 1870.
The next quarter will probably be warmer than normal throughout Spain, especially in the extreme north of the peninsula, the Mediterranean slope and both archipelagos.
The general prediction for this spring indicates “a very high probability that the quarter will be above the climatological average.”
Specifically, there is between a 70 and 100% probability that this will occur in the Balearic Islands, the Levant, the Cantabrian coast, the Andalusian coast and the Canary Islands, says Cayetano Torres, coordinator of the Meteorological and Climatological Information Area of ??the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet). . The probability is 60% to 70% in the interior of the peninsula.
On the other hand, regarding precipitation there is no clear and defining signal about what the weather will be like. “We cannot say that it will be drier, normal or humid; The models do not give us a signal,” Torres added.
“We cannot categorically affirm anything in this sense, except in the Canary Islands where there is a greater probability that the quarter will be drier,” says Aemet.
There is no prediction for Easter either, “since there are 10 days left until Palm Sunday and two weeks until Holy Thursday: accurate forecasts cannot yet be made,” Aemet emphasizes, invoking the high variability of these spring dates.
This is the prediction after the meteorological winter (December 2023 to February 2024) has become “the warmest in at least a century and a half” in Spain, that is, since 1870, as obtained from a Aemet’s climatic reconstruction dating back to that year.
Last winter turned out to be the warmest in the official Aemet historical series – which begins in 1961 -, tied with that of 2019-2020.
The average temperature in mainland Spain remained at 8.5 degrees (1.9 more than normal between 1991 and 2020), while in the Balearic Islands it was 1.7 degrees higher than usual.
“There have been no cold waves this winter, but there have been some episodes of low temperatures and others of really high temperatures for the time,” said Rubén del Campo, Aemet spokesperson.
In recent years, winters have occurred with temperatures above normal. “It is the first time in the historical series that we have six consecutive winters with temperatures above normal,” he added.
The winter was extremely warm in the Mediterranean region and very warm in the rest of peninsular Spain. In the Balearic Islands it was very warm, while in the Canary Islands it was extremely warm.
As for rainfall, last winter had normal records overall, although it was humid in areas of the west of the country and dry or very dry in the Levant, parts of the Cantabrian Sea, southern Andalusia and the archipelagos.
175 liters per square meter fell, 10% below normal; but the distribution has been very irregular. It has rained much more than normal in areas of Galicia, the center and the west of the peninsula and on the other hand it has rained very little in the Mediterranean area, where in large areas it has rained less than a quarter of normal; and the same in the Canary Islands.
“There has been a great imbalance and most of the time storms have arrived from the Atlantic, from the west, which have left rain in those areas, but the Mediterranean storms have not appeared and there has hardly been any rain,” adds Rubén del Campo, spokesperson by Aemet. The result is that in some areas the drought has been alleviated and in others the drought has worsened in winter.
Del Campo explained that winters are getting warmer while it is more difficult to establish this same rule in terms of less precipitation. “It rains 10% less in Spain as a whole, but we cannot say that it is due to climate change,” says Del Campo. It is necessary to see if this trend is robust and statistically significant, to see if there is a cause or if it falls within natural variability. “And right now there is no statistically significant trend when we talk about the whole. The rain in winter in our country is very variable.”
The rains of recent months mark a recovery in the northern and northwest basins, the Duero and the Tagus, but the Mediterranean and southern basins, Guadalquivir, Guadiana and Andalusia remain in drought.
The whole of peninsular Spain has been in a situation of lasting meteorological drought for 15 months, a period defined when less rain accumulates than normal in three years. This situation began in December 2022.
The current long-lasting meteorological drought is the most intense in Catalonia and the longest in Andalusia (Guadiana, Guadalquivir basins and the south of the Andalusian community), since at least 1961. The one in the south of the peninsula began in March 2016.
“We have not yet emerged from the drought situation. It has been partially alleviated by the winter rains, which were around normal, but were very abundant in some areas and not in others,” Del Campo specified.
It is not new, since there were other droughts between 1975 and 1976, from 1982 to 1983, from 1993 to 1995 (which was the most intense and longest), from 2006 to 2007, in 2017 and in 2019.
“If we analyze what has rained in recent years, almost all of Spain is still in a situation of meteorological drought, which does not mean that the rains of recent months have allowed us to recover impounded water, although this is only an indicator,” says Del Campo.
Only the demarcation of the Tagus has been able to get out of the long-term drought situation, which affects all of Spain.
