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WEATHER

IN IMAGES: Polar front returns to Spain with lots of snow and frost

Spring in Spain will have to wait as the national weather agency has warned that from Thursday another cold front will send temperatures plummeting to as low as -10C with plenty of snow and frost forecast.

Published: 23 February 2023 16:31 CET
IN IMAGES: Polar front returns to Spain with lots of snow and frost
Spain's weather agency expects "snowfall at low altitudes in the north and centre of the peninsula, especially on Thursday". Photo: Jotaka/Unsplash

In certain parts of Spain, temperatures had started to rise again recently. Spring, it seemed, was well on the way and the colder winter months behind us.

However, this week Spain’s state meteorological agency AEMET has warned of possible snow, frost, heavy rain, strong winds, and even double digit temperature drops.

What seems clear is that from Thursday 23rd the weather across the country will take a turn for the worse, and that things are expected to be much more severe in the north of the country, where heavy snowfall and temperature plummets of up to -10 degrees centigrade are expected.

The forecast

According to AEMET’s official Twitter account: the forecast is “Snowfall at low altitudes in the north and centre of the peninsula, especially on Thursday” and a “sharp drop in temperatures, with locally intense frosts that will affect large inland areas.

In another tweet, the weather agency added that “Temperatures will start to drop this Wednesday, but on Thursday 23rd, when the drop will be widespread and, in the northern half of the peninsula, substantial, thermometers will hit values 10C lower than the day before during the middle of the day.”

Temperatures are forecast to begin rising slightly from Friday.

Frost and heavy rain

Frosts are forecast to spread throughout inland Spain, lasting until Sunday 26th. These will be most severe in mountainous areas and in places that have recently experienced snowfall.

The weekend, which is the second weekend of Carnaval in many parts of Spain, is also set to be a wet one, with the worst affected areas forecast to be Asturias, Cantabria, Aragon, Catalonia, the Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands.

Cáceres, Badajoz, Huelva, Guadalajara, Ciudad Real and Teruel are also on alert for rain on Saturday, as are Galicia, Castilla y León and the Basque Country though the forecast is less severe.

From Sunday it is anticipated that the rain will dissipate in much of the country and the weather will improve. 

Snow

AEMET has also warned of possible heavy snowfall.

On Thursday 23rd “the probability of snowfall is very high in large areas of the north and centre of the country,” the weather agency says, with  snowfall of up to 5 centimetres in 24 hours in low areas (below 500 metres) forecast in the following areas: Cantabria, Navarra, and the Huesca and Lleida areas around the Pyrenees (where snowfall of up to 20 centimetres is anticipated, 80cm in the Pyrenees).

However, an orange snow alert has also been activated in Asturias, and general snow warnings cover most of the interior of northern Spain, including Ávila, Segovia, Burgos, León, Soria and Vitoria-Gasteiz.

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WEATHER

Will this summer in Spain be as hot as the previous two?

2023 was the world’s hottest summer on record, with many countries including Spain experiencing scorching temperatures. What are meteorologists forecasting for summer 2024?

Published: 16 May 2024 11:05 CEST
Updated: 18 May 2024 07:44 CEST
Will this summer in Spain be as hot as the previous two?

2023 was in fact the second-hottest summer Spain had ever experienced – the hottest being just one year earlier in 2022.

During that year, 11,300 people died in Spain alone due to the abnormally high temperatures, marine life perished in the warming seas and even train tracks warped and became deformed.

All eyes are looking toward this summer to see what will happen and if it will be as roasting as the previous two. 

READ ALSO:

According to the climate service Copernicus-EU, above-normal temperatures are predicted across southern Europe this summer.

And in Spain, there is a 50-70 percent chance that this summer will be one of the hottest 20 percent on record, and it will properly begin in June.

According to Spain’s State Meteorological Agency AEMET, we have already seen an abnormal rise this May.

Its quarterly prediction, which will take us up to the end of July (typically the hottest part of the summer here in Spain), states that it will almost certainly be warmer than usual on the Mediterranean side of the country, as well as the Balearic and Canary Islands.

Copernicus agrees with these predictions and has indicated that it’s very likely to be hotter than normal in certain areas of the country. It particularly singled out the Valencia region, Murcia (except the south), northern Almería and Granada, Ibiza and Formentera and the western Canary Islands.

It’s getting more and more difficult to know exactly what ‘above normal’ temperatures are, considering what Spain has experienced the last few years, but the reference period that many experts are basing their predictions on is from 1991-2020.

When it comes to rainfall, Copernicus has forecast that the “most likely scenario is a summer with less rain” than usual.

AEMET agreed with the prediction, stating on its X account that “most likely rainfall will be less throughout the country than what is already normally scarce in the summer season”.

This is bad news for many parts of Spain, such as Catalonia, Andalusia and the Canary Islands, which have already been experiencing an ongoing drought over the past two years.

Luckily, spring rains have managed to fill reservoirs just enough to see us through the summer at this point, but more rain will definitely be needed come autumn.

READ ALSO: Will drought restrictions affect summer holidays in Spain?

While scientists agree the sizzling temperatures experienced over the past few summers are down to climate change, last year in 2023, the cyclical phenomenon known as El Niño also had a part to play in global weather patterns.

When the seas become cooler on average and it has a cooling effect on the planet, this is partly down to the effect of La Niña.

This year is supposed to be dominated by La Niña and according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US, La Niña has a 49 percent chance of developing between June and August and a 69 percent chance between July and September.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean that this summer will be cooler than last year.

As of May 16th 2024, we’re undergoing a neutral period known as El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

Despite the global cooling effect of La Niña in 2022, it was still the planet’s sixth hottest year and the hottest in Spain ever recorded.

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