According to the Spanish meteorological agency Aemet, the mercury rose today to 42 degrees in Extremadura (a region in the southwest of the country) and to 41 degrees in Andalusia (in the south). In the northwest, where it is usually less warm, the maximum temperature rises above 35 degrees.
The heat wave started yesterday and will last for nine or ten days. “It will be one of the three longest heat waves in Spain since 1975,” Aemet spokesperson, Ruben del Campo, told AFP, noting that the heat wave was “extremely exceptional”, but that climate warming is more frequent. Severe heat waves with “the number of heat waves in the country more than doubling in the last twelve years,” it seems.
Emmett said extreme temperatures will be felt between Tuesday and Thursday. The agency cannot determine whether the record of 47.4 °C in the Spanish municipality of Montoro (in the province of Cordoba) as of August 2021 will be broken.
In the past eleven months, the country has experienced five periods of exceptionally high temperatures. Spaniards have had their warmest May since the turn of the century.
The water level in Spanish reservoirs is now 45.3 percent of their total capacity. In the past 10 years this has averaged 65.7 percent in the same period.
See also: We’re also at the start of a hot week: what can we expect?
