More than half of Spain at "extreme or very high" risk of forest fires in May

The drop in temperatures experienced this weekend comes to an end.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
03 May 2023 Wednesday 02:26
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More than half of Spain at "extreme or very high" risk of forest fires in May

The drop in temperatures experienced this weekend comes to an end. Since Sunday, the thermometers have risen again, leaving a generally warm week ahead, with thermal fluctuations and values ​​above normal for this time of year, although without breaking extreme records.

The high temperatures have triggered the risk of forest fires, which according to the data collected by the Meteorological Agency (Aemet) would be "extreme or very high" in all the Autonomous Communities except Galicia, the Community of Madrid, the Balearic Islands and isolated areas. of Catalonia, Extremadura and both Castiles. The authorities ask to pay special attention to the rules on fire prevention, since negligence causes a large part of the fires.

Fortunately, the passage of cold air troughs and low pressures that will affect our country will produce an expected drop in temperatures. In addition, it will come hand in hand with the first widespread rains after months of meteorological drought, a fact that could help save the Spanish countryside that is not going through its best moment.

The stormy fronts will increase the cloudiness in Galicia, Asturias and León starting today, with "rainfall in the second half of the day that could be accompanied by a storm," warns Aemet. This brief episode will end tomorrow Thursday, but a new trough could bring the expected rain to our country this weekend.

Aemet has communicated that its model “today foresees that a trough would cross the Peninsula from west to east, leaving a thermal drop and widespread storms in many areas of the country. In addition, they would be locally strong and would be accompanied by hail and strong gusts of wind."

As the meteorological portal has pointed out, a trough is a “zone of low pressures due to an inflow of cold air, which is associated with a southward undulation of the polar jet. On these dates it can lead to the development of strong storms.

However, it is not entirely certain that it will happen: “some maps do not draw its cul-de-sac so far south, others do not rule out that it could break away from the polar jet... In short, there is a lot of uncertainty and the models contemplate various scenarios. Although storms do not generally solve the drought, they do alleviate it locally," reveals meteorologist Samuel Biener, an expert at Meteored.