Summer officially starts in Spain at 5.54pm on June 21st, the day of the summer solstice and the longest day of the year.

At a press conference held in Madrid on Thursday, Beatriz Hervella and Rubén del Campo,  from the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET), warned that Spain was in for a hot summer in 2019.

“it is more likely that it will be hotter than normal in the peninsula and the Balearic Islands”, with an average of 0.5ºC above the usual (based on data recorded between 1981-2010), although in some specific areas of the western peninsular thermal anomaly of 1ºC is expected.”

She said the provinces of Ourense, León, Zamora, Cáceres, Badajoz and Huelva could see a summer up to 1C hotter than the norm.

It will be the fourth summer in a row with temperatures above average. Last summer recorded a rise of 0.6C and three of the hottest ever summers since records began in 1965 were 2015, 2016 and 2017.

The experts also warned of a high risk of drought in 2019 after one of the driest springs this century.

Rainfall since last October is 15 percent below the normal average across Spain as a whole but as high as 25 percent in some places. For example, Madrid did not experience a single rain shower during the month of May, although April was marked by torrential downpours.

READ MORE: How to survive summer in the city in Spain