The Iberian peninsula broke temperature records in April between Thursday and Friday with thermometers in Spain and Portugal climbing to almost 40ºC, in an unusually early heat wave that increased the risk of fires.
Source: AFP
Mainland Spain registered on Thursday a rtemperature record for a month of April with 38.8 degrees Celsius in Córdoba (south), according to provisional data published this Friday by the state meteorology agency (Aemet).
This temperature, recorded at the airport weather station of this Andalusian city“it would be the temperature record for April in mainland Spain”, Aemet noted on Twitter.
The previous record for mainland Spain was 2011, when 38.6 degrees were recorded in Elche (east).
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This provisional data still needs to be “confirmed”, which could take several days, according to what the agency told AFP.
This figure, however, It would not be an absolute record for all of Spain, since “the historical maximum was registered in the Canary Islands in 2013”, the archipelago located off the northwestern coast of Africa, Aemet specified. That record was 40.2 ºC.
For his part, the neighbor Portugal also reached its highest temperature for an April day in at least 78 years on Thursday, with 36.9 ºC in Mora, in the center of the country, according to the national meteorological institute.
– Catastrophic drought –
Spain and Portugal live a unusually early heat wave, caused by a mass of hot and dry air coming from North Africa.
On Friday the heat persisted and the temperature reached 37.8 ºC in Granada, in Andalusia, according to data from Aemet.
This led the Spanish government to advance, from the beginning of June to now, the state campaign against forest fires, The Ministry of the Interior announced this Friday.
As a result of climate change, episodes of exceptionally high temperatures have multiplied in recent years in Spain, European country on the front line with almost 75% of its territory at risk of desertification, according to the UN.
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The country experienced the warmest year on record in 2022, in which it chained several heat waves starting in May, according to Aemet.
According to a study by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) published on Tuesday, the days a year with summer temperatures in Spain went from 90 to 145, between 1971 and 2022.
In addition to the heat, Spain, which exports a large part of its agricultural production to the rest of Europe, is facing a catastrophic drought that worries farmers and authorities.
According to Coag, the main farmers’ union, 60% of Spanish agricultural land is currently “suffocated” due to lack of rainfall.
