Severe heat to get even worse next week, with 5 to 10 degrees above normal from Monday | Spain

Once the heat wave, the weekend presents itself with thermal rises and falls that herald a new rise in the thermometers, which could lead to a new wave. On Saturday and Sunday, “temperatures will be a little lower than normal in the western third of the peninsula and a little higher in the eastern ―Mediterranean and Balearic― regions, while in the Canary Islands the situation will return to normal”, explains Rubén . Del Campo, spokesman for the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet). But next week we will start with a “new and marked rise in temperature”, which will bring the thermometers back to very high values, “between 5° and 10° above the norm in the Peninsula, except in the western third, and in the Balearics”. With the arrival of the heat wave ―the hottest period of the year, which runs from 15 July to 15 August in Spain― the On Monday and Tuesday, the 40th and more will return to the centre, south and west of the Peninsula and “perhaps also in points in Mallorca”. From Wednesday, the declines will prevail, albeit with “a still very warm environment in general, except in the northern third and in the northwest”.

For days, this Friday thermal relief will come to the Canary Islands after a very tough Thursday in which they suffered from 37° to 39° in all the islands and more than 41° in Gran Canaria, but the heat will still very intense and will again exceed 35° or 37° in most of the islands. Stable weather and few cloudy skies are expected on the Peninsula, even if “a front will touch western Galicia and leave rain in the estuaries”. Temperatures will drop in the west and south of Andalusia, but will rise in the north. “The ascent will be extraordinary, of more than 10°, in the eastern Cantabrian Sea, as southwesterly winds will blow and arrive very superheated,” warns Del Campo. In Bilbao it could be around 35°, in Vitoria 37° and 39° in Pamplona and Zaragoza, more than 36° in the center and in the south and 38°/40° in the zero heat zone, the Guadalquivir valley.

A Saturday opposite to Sunday

The temperature carousel will continue on Saturday. “The wind will turn to the west and bring with it a cooler Atlantic air mass, which is why they will descend practically over the entire peninsular territory”, explains Del Campo, to underline that in the eastern Cantabrian Sea the decrease will be extraordinary and equivalent to the increase of yesterday. However, these westerly winds arrive superheated in the Mediterranean area, where temperatures will rise. It will exceed 36° in the areas of Aragon and the interior of Catalonia and the Valencian Community, in Majorca, Murcia, Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia, up to 38° in Guadalquivir and up to 40° in the capital Murcia. The rains will be scarce and limited to the extreme north of the peninsula, “without excluding a weak thunderstorm in isolated mountainous areas”.

Sunday the carousel will turn and the opposite of the day before will happen. “Temperatures will rise across the board, but will drop in the Mediterranean regions and the Balearic Islands due to the arrival of easterly winds, which are wetter and colder,” says the Aemet spokesperson. It will exceed 36° in the center and southern half, and also 38°/40° in Guadalquivir and eastern Andalusia. In the Cantabrian Sea the atmosphere will be cooler and there will be just over 22°. It will hardly rain, except in parts of the Cantabrian communities and some possible isolated thunderstorms in the mountain areas. In the Canary Islands over the weekend “the trade winds will dominate, which will blow intensely in some points and temperatures will return to normal”, although on Saturday it will still be possible to exceed 32° in the south of Gran Canaria.

Heat wave in Europe in sight

And next week the scourge of extreme heat returns. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned on Thursday of that a large heat wave will affect the Mediterranean basinwith 45th in the Middle East and Türkiye, while the The European Space Agency (ESA) specified that it will affect Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Poland and that in Sicily and Sardinia the European record of 48.8°, reached in Floridia, in the Sicilian province of Syracuse, on 11 August 2021 can be broken. According to ESA, in Spain the temperature of the earth’s surface ―significantly warmer compared to the environment― it can reach 46° in Madrid and 47° in Seville. The cause is a powerful anticyclone, called Cerberus in honor of the monster that Dante placed at the entrance to hell, to which is added the arrival of a new mass of air from North Africa.

When asked about this, Del Campo clarified that both organizations speak of the concept of a heat wave “in a generic and broad sense”, i.e. an episode of extreme heat in a very large area for several days. “Between Monday and Wednesday, in eastern Spain, southeastern France, most of Italy, the Balkans, Greece and the northern Maghreb, the Efi index (acronym in English for Extreme Forecast Index, with which the rarity of an extreme phenomenon is quantified) returns very unusual values”, explains the Aemet spokesman.

However, specific wave thresholds are set by each state agency for each country and which, in the case of Spain, are not met for now. “In Spain we will have to see, he hits him a little smear. This summer we are having heat peaks that do not last long and, for the moment, the situation does not reach the three-day threshold”, explains the expert. Whether there is a wave or not, Del Campo warns that the first days of next week, especially Monday and Tuesday, “will be difficult days due to high temperatures in the east and south of the Peninsula and in the Balearic Islands ”.

On Monday “there will be a general and quite pronounced increase in the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands”, which will continue on Tuesday in the Mediterranean regions and in this archipelago. On both days it will exceed 36° in the extended areas, 38° or 40° in the central south and 40°/42° in the Guadalquivir. Thus, on Tuesday 39° are expected in Pamplona and 42° and even 44° in Zaragoza and more than 42° in points in the interior of Catalonia and the Valencian Community, in Murcia and eastern Andalusia. Tuesday morning will be very hot, with scorching nights, above 25°, in points east and south of the Peninsula and the Balearics, and Wednesday “it will still be very hot”,

“In the following days, the decreases will prevail, especially in the north and east of the peninsula and in the Balearic Islands, and over the weekend there will be a situation of heat, but not more extreme”, concludes the meteorologist. As for the next two weeks, today “what you see are generally normal temperatures for the season, hotter in the east and cooler in the west from 12-30pm, while the first week of August paints something hotter than normal at south”.