Autumn, which will begin on September 23 at 8.50 a.m. Peninsular time, is expected to be very warm and rainier than normal, which could help alleviate the meteorological drought affecting the whole of the Iberian Peninsula. This is the prediction of the State Meteorological Agency (Aemat) after a few summer months that have led to the third warmest summer of the historical series behind the years 2003 and 2022, and in which climate change has accelerated in Spain.
Seasonal prediction models point to a high probability: that the meteorological autumn - between September 1 and November 30 - will be warmer than normal. And, in the same way, if you take into account a wider prediction, which includes the quarter made up of the months of October, November and December, "we are heading for a very warm quarter, with temperatures much higher than which is normal", emphasizes Rubén del Campo, spokesperson for Aemet. The forecast is that there is a 50% to 70% chance that it will be warmer than normal values across the Peninsula. "It is a very marked probability", says the spokesman.
The models also indicate months that could be wetter than normal, although there are more uncertainties in this case. There is a 40% to 50% chance that it will be a rainy quarter, and a 20% to 40% chance that it will be dry. "We can't get so wet here, because this is a smaller parameter in our latitudes, because with one or two very rainy episodes you can already reach the average for the whole season", adds the Aemet spokesperson. This higher probability of a rainy autumn, with above-normal rainfall in most of Spain, would occur mainly in the north-west of the Peninsula", says Del Campo. If this were the case, it would be good news to stop the meteorological drought, which has already lasted a long time: it began in December 2022 and has continued despite the summer rains.
Meanwhile, the warming tests continue in Spain. In the summer there have been episodes of extreme heat, as evidenced by the four heat waves and 24 days with this situation of extreme temperatures in the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands.
For Rubén del Campo, spokesperson for Aemet, the most relevant is that "nine of the ten warmest summers since 1961 have taken place in the 21st century, and four of the five warmest have taken place since 2015", he adds.
Daily maximum temperatures were 1.2°C above normal on average.
The 24 days of heat waves in the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands may seem little if compared to last year, when there were 41; "but this year more than a quarter of the summer days we have been in an extreme situation due to high temperatures", adds Del Campo. The average in the decade of the 1980s, 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century was seven days with heat waves per year, which means that the number is multiplying by three.
At Valencia airport, a maximum temperature of 46.8º C was recorded on July 10, the highest recorded this summer in Spain and which beat the station's record by more than 3º C. "Traditionally, records have been broken by tenths or a degree at most, but this year records have been broken that attract attention by the wide margin recorded," says Del Campo.
In the city of Málaga, two "hell" nights were experienced, a new name not yet consolidated referring to nights in which the temperature does not fall below 30º C, one of which with a minimum temperature of 31.2º C, on 20 of July And in a resort in Tenerife it did not drop below 37º C during one night.
In the same way, the temperature of the coastal waters of Spain also recorded between January and August the highest value since there are data. "From January to August, if we take the average, the temperature of the surrounding coastal waters in Spain has reached almost 19.5º C, which is 0.5º C above the previous warmest record, corresponding to 2020" , says Del Campo.
The warmer water is "fuel" for storms, which can leave more intense precipitation when the conditions are more suitable. "This indicator is also giving us extreme values", the spokesman points out.
If the weather behavior of the period between January and August is analyzed, the year 2023 ties with 2022 and 2020 as the warmest in the historical series, with an average temperature of 15.7º C, which it is 1.1º C above the normal average.
From 1961 to 2023, the average temperature in peninsular Spain has increased by 1.6º C.
