The calendar and the thermometer are fighting loudly in Spain. And the thing is that (little by little) we are getting used to it, but what we are experiencing it’s not normal. From May 26 and 29 the interior of the Peninsula will live about five degrees above usual.
And, sincerely, the words of AEMET they leave no room for doubt “extraordinarily warm for the time.”
We thought that 2026 was going to be different, but no. After a completely anomalous January, many expected that this anomaly would continue with us. But the tentacles of summer are already here. And as AEMET says, none of this is “a flash”. It is one more installment of a recurring pattern: the hot season is getting longer and warmer. The records that They are marking all the thermometers of the Cantabrian coast make it clear.
What is happening right now? The week will be dominated by a powerful subtropical anticyclone extended over Western Europe that will generate what It is often referred to as a “heat dome”. That is, a situation in which the air we have above the peninsula is not renewed and is warming little by little.
In this sense, in this week’s episode there is no clear influence of the warm African air. Have one of the first “Iberian ovens” of the year: The country is generating its own heat through stagnation and compression (the descent of warm ridge air over warm surface air).
While mainland Spain is on the verge of 40 degrees (and many parts exceed it), countries like France They are experiencing completely unprecedented heat.
“It doesn’t end here.” What AEMET says is clear: The next few days will be extraordinarily warm and the seasonal prediction for May-June-July places all of Spain in the upper tertile of temperatures. However, these are only “participations” in a “weather lottery” whose result, as always, is yet to be decided.
However, the Agency has explained ad nauseam that, in the last 50 years, the heat has only gotten earlier and longer. June 2025, without going any further, It was the warmest June in the historical series Spanish, with an average temperature 3.5 °C above the average and 0.8 °C above the previous maximum (that of 2017). The entire summer of 2025 closed 2.1°C above average.
However, 2026 is not a normal year. In fact, there is an interesting paradox that should be highlighted. All this happens with reservoirs at 84% (one of the Mays with the most reserves in the last 35 years): this rules out the drought scenario, but opens an unexpected flank: the fires have grown by 218% so far this year and we still have summer ahead of us.
Image | BenBaso
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