Over 44 degrees in Spain for the first heat wave of the summer

France Press agency , Posted on Monday, June 26, 2023 at 8:00 pm

Spain is facing its first heat wave in the summer, with temperatures exceeding 44 degrees in the south of the country, on Monday, according to the Meteorological Agency (EMET), which has put several regions on alert.

The heat wave, which started on Sunday, pushed the thermometer above 38 degrees in Madrid and 44.4 degrees in El Granado, Andalusia (southwest), according to Emmett.

On Sunday the mercury already reached 43.8 degrees in this municipality near the border with Portugal, according to the Meteorological Agency, which expects temperatures to return to a more bearable level in the middle of the week.

In Seville (southwest), where the thermometer reached 42.9 degrees on Monday, high temperatures forced many workers to change their schedules to avoid heatstroke.

“We usually work from 8:00 am to 3:30 pm, but we changed it from 7:00 am to 2:30 pm,” Miguel Angel, an employee in the construction sector, told AFP. worrying.

“Three years ago, I had four heatstrokes” while working, he explained, “the heat strokes knocked me unconscious. Today, I’m very careful.”

Soaring temperatures have prompted authorities to activate their anti-heat plans, which identify the different levels of risk for residents and make it possible to adapt schedules for schools and outdoor work.

In the year 2022, many workers died in their workplaces in Spain, due to extreme temperatures. These deaths prompted the authorities to enhance protection measures for employees, by banning work during hot hours.

– Longer summer –

Spain, which is on the front line of global warming in Europe, is used to extreme temperatures, especially in the south, but has faced a doubling and intensification of heat waves in recent years, according to scientists.

“Over ten years, the frequency of these heat episodes has tripled compared to previous years. This goes hand in hand with the lengthening of the (meteorological) summer by about ten days per decade since the 1980s,” confirmed Rubén del Campo, Aemet spokesperson.

At the end of April, the hot and dry air mass from North Africa has already set an absolute record temperature for April in mainland Spain at 38.8 degrees, a level worthy of July.

This phenomenon “would have been almost impossible without climate change,” a study published a few days later by World Weather Attribution (WWA) showed.

On a larger scale, Europe witnessed a year 2022 that was 2.3 degrees warmer than the climate at the end of the nineteenth century, according to what was announced by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) last week, confirming that the continent’s temperature is rising at twice the global rate. That fuels heat waves and exceptional drought.