The Servei Meteorològic de Catalunya (SMC), Civil Protection and the Public Health Agency of the Generalitat have updated the Notices of Dangerous Meteorological Situation (SMP) due to heat and cold. The purpose of the update is to make the notices more understandable and adapted to the context of climate change. In the same way, a “pioneering in Europe” pilot test has been promoted for night heat notices.
The Secretary of Public Health, Carmen Cabezas, the director of the SMC, Sarai Sarroca, and the general director of Civil Protection, Marta Cassany, explained it this Wednesday at a press conference. The measures have been implemented after a study by the Ministry of Health and the Catalan meteorological service to “improve the warning thresholds” of dangerous situations.
As of now, in addition to the heat and cold warnings, Catalonia will have a night heat warning. For now, it will form part of a pilot test in the Catalan coastal and pre-coastal regions because “the highest temperature values ​​normally occur near the coast and not so much inland.” In addition, a good part of the health problems that are aggravated or caused by heat are a combination of high temperatures and humidity, two particularities that occur in the regions where the pilot test will be applied, which will last one year.
They have also modified the warnings for heat and cold so that they are “more understandable and respond to the consequences of climate change” and have separated them from heat and cold waves, explained the head of the SMC prediction area, Santi Segalà . He has also specified that the updating of the warnings wants to facilitate the management of official organizations and the population in the face of these meteorological episodes on the one hand and give an operational response to the “increasingly frequent” hot nights on the other.
From now on, Catalonia will have two warnings for heat: the warning for intense heat, which will be activated when the maximum temperature exceeds the threshold that marks the maximum daily temperature in the summer months, and the warning for very intense heat, which will be activated when the temperature exceeds said threshold by two degrees of difference.
It will work in the same way with the warnings for cold: the warning for intense cold will be activated when the minimum temperature is below the threshold that marks the minimum daily temperature in the winter months, and the warning for very intense cold, which will be activated when the temperature falls below said threshold by two degrees difference.
Although each municipality has its own maximum temperature threshold and minimum daily temperature during the summer and winter months respectively, Segalà has stressed that these notices will be regional and the thresholds of each region will be taken as a reference.
“The number of tropical nights in the last 30 years is rising alarmingly,” warned Segalà , who assured that the warning for night heat is unique in Europe and they only know that it is carried out in Australia.
Thus, in the Catalan coastal and pre-coastal regions, the warning for intense night heat will be activated when the minimum temperature exceeds the minimum daily temperature threshold for the summer months and the warning for very intense night heat when the minimum temperature exceeds said threshold. by two degrees of difference.
