“they paint a lot for the Mediterranean communities of Spain”

Between July 15 and August 15 the worst of the summer is concentrated. And it’s not a figure of speech: the hottest June day never registered in Spaindoes not even reach the top 20 of the hottest days ever recorded. Those four weeks are hell: the letters that the weather hands us every year.

That is, the dog days.

There is nothing new here if I tell you that it will be hot. What is new is that we arrived with two heat waves, 1,682 deaths attributable to heat and meteorologists like José Miguel VIñas warning that “They paint a lot for the Mediterranean communities of Spain“We arrived, then, with our tongues hanging out.

What has happened to the dog days in the last 50 years? That’s a good question: if we go to the studio Heat waves in Spain since 1975 from AEMET, we found very interesting things. In general terms, the 75 heat waves that we have experienced in recent years follow a distribution very similar to that of decades ago. The window has not widened too much: it has moved forward somewhat, but (above all) it has filled up.

The number of days of heat waves has multiplied by 2.3, but the only substantial thing that has changed is that: where there was heat before, there is now much more.

The least obvious consequence… is that the traditional alarm calendar and the real risk calendar have become decoupled. If we look at the MoMo (mortality estimates from the Carlos III Health Institute), May left 123 deaths due to heat; June, 1,031; and the first week of July (which coincided with the second heat wave), 622.

We have already borne a large part of the ‘bill’ of a normal summer and the worst part has not yet begun.

And what can we expect? Right now the least risky forecast is simple: “a powerful ridge of African air, dry, very warm and dusty” will cause temperatures to skyrocket in the coming days. The situation is so extreme that, always according to the available models, there are some areas where temperatures close to absolute records are expected.

And we must not forget that we are already close to 40 in many parts of the country (the provinces of Lleida and Zaragoza They scored 39 or more the day before yesterday and Valencia stayed close). A push of heat on this situation is just what we don’t need.

Are we really going to reach 45 degrees? It is very difficult to make temperature estimates for so many days (even more so when it seems that there will be haze), but the possibility is on the table. They are alsothe hellish nights.

Whatever happens in the next few days, it makes sense for us to start preparing.

Image | BenBaso

In Xataka | The networks are filling up with maps that promise the end of the heat. One thing is what we would like and another, very different, is what we know