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WEATHER

‘Like summer’: Heat records for April already broken across Spain

Spain has had a scorcher of an April so far with heat records broken across the country, summery temperatures in the north, and the mercury up to 16C higher than normal in some parts.

Published: 15 April 2024 11:52 CEST
'Like summer': Heat records for April already broken across Spain
Tourists in Barcelona, where April temperature records have been beaten. (Photo by PAU BARRENA / AFP)

We may only be midway through April but Spain has already seen summer-like temperatures in many parts of the country, with record breaking temperatures and heat well above normal values for the time of year.

So far there have been 60 temperature records in April with more than 15 days of the month still to go.

It has been such a warm spring so far that the Spanish press have dubbed it primaverano – a portmanteau of spring (primavera) and summer (verano) in Spanish.

For their part, national weather agency Aemet have described the heat in the Canaries as that of “the middle of summer”. 

Records for both minimum and maximum highs have been broken one after another since the beginning of the month. The record breaking temperatures have been largely in the north, in particular around the Cantabrian Sea, though temperatures have topped 30C in parts of the south.

Temperatures reached 30C at 65 weather stations run by Aemet.

Bilbao, for example, recorded a minimum temperature of 20.1C at its airport, easily beating the previous April record of 17.8C all the way back in April 1949. San Sebastián airport station also beat its previous April record by almost 3C. 

Vigo and Ourense in the northwestern Galicia region and Vitoria in the Basque Country also beat heat records for April with temperatures above 30C.

The Fabra Observatory in Barcelona recorded 29.1C, smashing the previous record (recorded last year in 2023) by 1.6 degrees.

Meteorologist Alfons Puertas posted the record breaking news in a message on Twitter/X, stating: “ATTENTION! A few minutes ago #obsFabra just surpassed the maximum temperature record for April for the entire 1914-2024 series!! 29.1C (provisional) exceeds last year’s record by +1.6C!”

Record temperatures were also recorded in other northern regions such as Asturias and Cantabria.

In the rest of the country, record high minimum temperatures were recorded in provincial capitals including Salamanca, Guadalajara and Teruel.

But the heatwave hasn’t just been felt on the Spanish mainland. On the Canary Islands, April heat records were set in most of the islands, especially in Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Tenerife and La Gomera.

The weather station at Tenerife South Airport recorded a staggering 38.3C April temperature.

Aemet posted on Twitter/X just how abnormal these April temperatures have been: “On Sunday 14th, temperatures were once again very high for the season in most of the country: between 7-15C above normal.”

Aemet also states that the record maximum highs around the country have been “among the 5 percent of the warmest temperatures recorded at this time of year,” adding that the abnormally warm Spring has brought summer temperatures to northern Spain.

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WEATHER

Does Spain use cloud seeding?

Some voices online blamed cloud seeding for flash flooding in Dubai recently. Does Spain use this weather modification technique and is it being harnessed as a means of combatting severe drought in the country?

Published: 30 April 2024 11:06 CEST
Does Spain use cloud seeding?

The internet was awash with images of dramatic flooding in the UAE two weeks ago, in which parts of the country saw more rainfall in a single day than it usually does in an entire year on average.

The UEA government stated that it was the most rainfall the country had seen in 75 years and an incredible 10 inches of rain fell in the city of Al Ain.

Predictably, the freak weather event sparked fierce internet debate about the causes and consequences among climate change activists and climate change sceptics. The cause, in particular, struck a chord with certain subsections of the internet and many were asking the same question: did ‘cloud seeding’ cause this biblical downpour?

But what exactly is cloud seeding? Does Spain use it? And with the country’s ongoing drought conditions, should it be using it?

What is cloud seeding?

According to the Desert Research Institute: “Cloud seeding is a weather modification technique that improves a cloud’s ability to produce rain or snow by introducing tiny ice nuclei into certain types of subfreezing clouds. These nuclei provide a base for snowflakes to form. After cloud seeding takes place, the newly formed snowflakes quickly grow and fall from the clouds back to the surface of the Earth, increasing snowpack and streamflow.”

Cloud seeing is used by countries around the world, not only in the Middle East but in China and the U.S, usually in areas suffering drought concerns. The process can be done from the ground, with generators, or from above with planes.

Does Spain use cloud seeding?

Sort of, but on a far smaller scale and not in the same way other countries do. In places like China and the U.S, where large swathes of the country are at risk of drought, cloud seeding is used to help replenish rivers and reservoirs and implemented on an industrial scale.

In Spain, however, the technique has been for a much more specific (and small scale) reason: to avoid hailstorms that can destroy crops.

This has mostly been used in the regions of Madrid and Aragón historically.

But cloud seeding isn’t something new and innovative, despite how futuristic it might seem. In fact, Spain has a pretty long history when it comes to weather manipulation techniques. Between 1979 and 1981, the first attempts to stimulate rainfall took place in Spain, coordinated by the World Meteorological Organisation.

“In 1979, in Valladolid, different techniques were developed to observe the local clouds but they did not meet any possible conditions for cloud seeding experiments. The project came to a standstill,” José Luis Sánchez, professor of Applied Physics at the University of León, told La Vanguardia.

This sort of cloud seeding, as used abroad, doesn’t really happen in Spain anymore. Rather, when it’s used it’s done to protect crops on a local level. Spain’s Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge are responsible for authorising cloud seeding, but there are only a handful of current authorisations to combat hail, such as the one granted to the Madrid’s Agricultural Chamber combat hail in the south-east of the region.

As of 2024, it is believed that no regions have requested cloud seeding (whether by generator or plane) to ‘produce’ more rain.

So, cloud seeding isn’t currently used like it is in countries such as the U.S., China, and the UAE. But should it, and could it solve the drought issue in Spain?

An aircraft technician inspects a plane’s wing mounted with burn-in silver iodide (dry ice) flare racks. (Photo by Indranil MUKHERJEE / AFP)

Spain’s drought conditions

Spain has been suffering drought conditions for several years now. Last year the government announced a multi-billion dollar package to combat the drought conditions, and several regions of Spain have brought in water restrictions to try and maintain dwindling reservoir reserves. 

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At times in Spain in recent years it has felt as though another temperature or minimum rainfall record is broken every other day. The drought conditions are particularly bad in the southern region of Andalusia and Catalonia, where, despite heavy rain over Easter, reservoirs in the region are at just 18 percent capacity, the lowest level in the country.

So, could cloud seeding be used in Spain to help alleviate some of the drought conditions? Yes and no. Seeding is not the only answer to drought, but could theoretically be used as one option among many.

“It’s just another tool in the box,” Mikel Eytel, a water resources specialist with the Colorado River District, told Yale Environment 360 magazine: “It’s not the panacea that some people think it is.”

This is essentially because cloud seeding does not actually produce more rain, rather it stimulates water vapour already present in clouds to condense and fall faster. For there to be a significant amount of rainfall, the air needs significant levels of moisture.

That is to say, using cloud seeing to try and stimulate more rain may help Spain’s drought conditions in a small way, but the difference would be marginal.

“It’s not as simple and may not be as promising as people would like,” respected cloud physicist Professor William R. Cotton, wrote in The Conversation. 

“Experiments that produce snow or rain require the right type of clouds with sufficient moisture and the right temperature and wind conditions. The percentage increases are small and it is difficult to know when the snow or rain fell naturally and when it was triggered by seeding.”

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