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Get the sunscreen out – April in Spain promises to be a scorcher
After a decidedly damp March, spring temperatures across Spain are predicted to be much warmer than usual
The month of March has been a total washout across Spain and going by the current forecasts, it doesn’t look like things are going to improve too much in the immediate future. But we’re already half way through the month and most people will be wondering what spring has in store. Well, the weather predictions are in and the experts are all pointing to a bit of a scorcher.
Just last week, the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) released its forecasts for April, May and June, the months that represent astronomical spring, which begins at 10.01am on March 20. While these long-term predictions are naturally subject to change, the experts believe it will be more than 70% hotter this spring than last year.
But this isn’t really anything unusual. Spring in Spain is now just a new offshoot of summer: the last cold snap we had was way back in 2018.
What does remain a mystery to meteorologists is the rain. While “March has started strongly” with frequent downpours and storms, rainfall patterns across Spain as just as likely to remain above normal as they are to fall below in the coming months.
“To be honest, we don’t know what will happen with the rainfall; the different models can’t agree,” Aemet spokesperson Ruben del Campo said last week.
What we do know is that the recent rainfall has officially ended the two droughts that have been stressing Spain: the one-year drought and the persistent, long-term three-year drought.
“Analysing the accumulated rainfall over the last 12 months, at the end of February there was no longer a one-year drought,” Del Campo explained, emphasising that "the long-term drought, which Spain entered at the end of 2023 and which still persisted at the end of February, will very likely end up reversing with the rainfall this March.”
Despite the recent rain, winter was much milder than normal in mainland Spain and on the islands, with every month recording above-average temperatures – the thermometers were 1.2°C above the average for the reference period (1991-2020). And while we have had a few chilly days, Spain hasn’t even come close to meeting the criteria for a true ‘cold snap’.
“It was the sixth warmest winter in the series, which began in 1961, and the fifth warmest of the 21st century,” said Del Campo, for whom “the most significant thing is the very clear trend towards milder winters.” Of the last 10, only one has been cold - 2017-2018 - while the remaining nine have been warm (three) or very warm (six).
“It is the first time, since the beginning of the series in 1961, that a season, any of them, has been warmer than normal for seven consecutive years; that had never happened before,” stressed the Aemet spokesperson, emphasising that not even the Filomena winter of 2021 was really cold.
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