Spring is just around the corner and, we like it or not, this means that we can start drawing conclusions. The first is that every minute that passes is more likely to finish winter without seeing any “cold wave.”
And that is not even what most worries meteorologists. Because the real problem is that it would be the second consecutive winter without cold waves and a third would be at hand. With all that this entails.
Isn’t it a bit precipitated to give the winter for dead? The truth is not. Although this week an extremely cold mass of air will cover a good part of Europe, Spain will escape from it. And on March 1 (which is when climate spring begins) is very close to be able to house realistic hopes about an extreme cold episode.
And, in the background, what we are going to see this week summarizes very well what has been going on two winters: we have not suffered powerful cold irruptions. They have all stayed north. It is a story that is repeated again and again.
But it’s not so weird either, right? That is true. The cold episodes become more and more rare in Spain. In fact, this January can only be described as very warm (Although we have suffered a handful of cold nights).
A example that Roberto Granda puts It is that of Molina de Aragón. The average minimum between 1991 and 2020 is -3.3º, but this year it has been at -0.3. The data speak for themselves. In the end, As I pointed out A few years ago our partner Javier Pastor, “is not that it is very cold now, it is that we do not do it because it is no longer so common.”
With this in mind, the question begins to be … how long can this last?
“Unusual and worrying.” That is, what would happen if the winter of 2026 is still on the same line? The answer, According to Samuel Biener de Meteoredit is summarized in those two words: “Unusual and worrying.” Because we have documented other consecutive warm winters (those of 97 and 98, those of 2000 and 2001 or those of 2023 and 14); But we have not seen three consecutive yet.
And we know it will arrive. Because, As Biener points outwarm winters are being increasingly frequent. It is a matter of time that we fit three.
And what is the problem? More than a problem (that too), we talk about a fear: that warm winters stop being an anomaly and become the norm. That change is a large-scale disruption of the country’s socio-ecological system. It is no accident that, a few months after the drought, The data begin to be so bad. Again.
Not only climatic pressures They hit us stronger than everthe thing is They don’t let us replenish. And that will lead us to the edge of the precipice again and again.
Yes it’s true. The current climate is full of paradoxes: Historical ice minimums live with snow maximumstudies on The weakening of the Gulf current They coexist with others that point to nothing has changed in substantial terms and thus a long etcetera. However, there is something that Yes we know is that we are vulnerable And if we don’t prepare ourselves, Let’s be much more.
Image | ECMWF
In Xataka | Spain faces the driest climate in its last 1,200 years. The fault is the Azores Islands