The heat wave that has hit Spain since July 9 does not end and extreme temperatures are expected on Sunday in the south of the country, where the thermometer could reach 45 degrees Celsius.
Despite a few days of very relative respite when temperatures briefly dropped below 40 degrees, the country is in the grip of a heat wave that has lasted two weeks. This episode translates into suffocating temperatures with maximums above 36 degrees in almost all of the country, with the exception of the northwest, according to forecasts from the national meteorological agency (Aemet).
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The region of Cordoba, Andalusia, in the South, is where the temperatures are expected to be the highest with 45 degrees expected. It was in this region that the absolute temperature record in Spain was recorded in August 2021 with 47.4 degrees in Montoro. Due to this heat wave, coupled with the lack of rainfall in the Iberian Peninsula since the beginning of the year, a risk “extremefire exists nationwide, according to Aemet.
200,000 hectares burned
In Tenerife, in the Canary archipelago, a forest fire took 2156 hectares and led to the evacuation of nearly 600 people, the emergency services said on Saturday evening. Since the beginning of the year, more than 200,000 hectares have already burned in Spain, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), making it the country most affected by fires on the continent.
The proliferation of these phenomena is a direct consequence of global warming, with greenhouse gas emissions increasing in intensity, duration and frequency, the scientists explain.
Including the current heat wave, Spain has gone through five episodes of exceptionally high temperatures over the past eleven months. The month of May had notably been the hottest there since the beginning of the century.
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