First balance of the "abnormally" warm episode that Spain suffers for the end of March, which this Thursday begins to subside in a large part of the country, except for the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands, where it will continue to worsen until Saturday.
Wednesday was "an exceptionally warm day" for this time of year, certified Rubén del Campo, spokesman for the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet).
"In most of Spain, except in the Mediterranean area, temperatures reached values between 7° and 14° higher than normal," says the Aemet spokesman, who highlights the 37.8° that were reached in Tasarte, in the municipality of La Aldea de San Nicolás (south of Gran Canaria).
In other localities in the Canary Islands they were around 35° and in general they exceeded 30° in low areas of the archipelago, “an environment more typical of midsummer”.
On the Cantabrian coast, the thermometers rose to the incredible level of 30° in San Vicente de la Barquera (Cantabria) and at the Bilbao and San Sebastián airports.
"These two observatories reached 30° for the first time in their historical series in March since there are records, which is a record for maximum monthly temperature," highlights the Aemet spokesperson.
Bilbao airport has data from 1948 and San Sebastián airport, from 1956.
And there were three more records: 29.5° in Ciudad Real (it was 29°), 27.1° in Cáceres (26.8°) and at the Lanzarote airport 33.4° (32.7°).
In addition, although without being a record, he made 31.5 ° in Villarrobledo (Albacete);
30.7° in Fuente Palmera (Córdoba) and 30.6° in Carmona (Seville), and 30.5 in San Vicente de la Barquera (Cantabria).
Nighttime temperatures were also skyrocketing in the Canary Islands, where TVE meteorologist Nuria Seró wondered on Twitter if anyone could sleep.
The minimums, Del Campo certifies, "were very high", so much so that a tropical night was recorded - when the thermometers do not drop below 20° - in a good part of the archipelago.
Even in Agüimes (Gran Canaria) it suffered a torrid night ―when it does not drop below 25°―, something “very unusual in March”.
⚠️ These are the #temperatures we have right now in the Canary Islands, at 05:30 p.m.
Above 30 ºC at points in Gran Canaria or Fuerteventura👇🥵 pic.twitter.com/PmSgJpFRZ6
– Marc Santandreu (@marcsansa) March 30, 2023
In Spain as a whole, Wednesday was a record warm day, which means that it was the warmest March 29 compared to the temperature on those same days of the month of all the same months since there are records, 1950 With this, the country already accumulates five records of warm days when the first quarter of the year has barely elapsed: February 18 and March 12, 13, 16 and 29.
“The expected average over a full year for both record hot days and record cold days is about five records each in unmodified weather.
In 2023 we have already completed that theoretical quota of warm records in only one quarter and, for the moment, there have been no records of cold days”, concludes Del Campo.
And all this in the coldest quarter of the year and when summer is still ahead.
In 2022, the warmest year in Spain since there are records, there were up to 35 records for warm days and only two for cold ones.
In March 2023, four days have been the warmest of their respective dates since the start of the series: the 12th, 13th, 16th and 29th. February 20th was also warmest, so we now have five records for warmest days. , which is the theoretically expected value for the entire year.
pic.twitter.com/mrxgvVV7ej
– AEMET (@AEMET_Esp) March 30, 2023
This escalation in the thermometers is due to the generation of a corridor between a powerful anticyclone and a storm, through which a very warm air mass from the south has filtered.
But this is not the first warm episode ―which is not a heat wave, a phenomenon that by its very definition can only occur, for the moment, in summer― so far in the meteorological spring: on March 10 there was already a summer of four days with temperatures up to 15° above the normal average, which set 10 monthly records, with highs of 31.8° and tropical nights.
Both warm episodes are yet another example of how summer is eating up spring in Spain and the root cause, in the absence of more in-depth studies, "cannot be another", says Del Campo, that climate change and the progressive Earth warming.
Improper temperatures for March
And how long will these inappropriate temperatures last for the end of March?
This Thursday, the day began with the thermometers once again skyrocketing in the Canary Islands, where at six in the morning they reached 29° in San Sebastián de La Gomera and 30° in Pájara.
"These are very high temperatures even for midsummer," Del Campo emphasizes.
On the other hand, a progressive decline has already begun on the Peninsula, more pronounced in the northwest, where it will be 4°/5° less compared to Wednesday, although temperatures will pick up in the Mediterranean area and the Balearic Islands.
In the province of Valencia, it can do up to 10° more than on Wednesday and reach 33° in the capital.
On Friday, temperatures will drop in the northern third.
In the rest of the country, they will not change or drop a bit, although they could still rise a little closer to the Mediterranean coast and in the Balearic Islands, where they could exceed 30° in Malaga, Alicante, Valencia and Murcia, which could even be around 34°, “a very, very warm environment for the end of March”.
The b side of these high temperatures is the absence of rain, which deepens the situation of long-term meteorological drought that Spain has been in since last December, as well as the increased risk of fires that, despite still being very far of summer, it takes days and days in very high or extreme values in certain areas of the country.
This Thursday, dry and overheated winds from the west are arriving in the Mediterranean area, so the risk of fires is extreme in the east of the country, as well as on the Cantabrian coast and in the Ebro valley. Friday will be a day of even more extreme fire risk in the same areas of the Peninsula.
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