AEMET

Spain is going to have three heat waves in six weeks. AEMET is clear: it is no longer a wave, it is the climate

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Spain has just signed its start to the warmest summer in the historical series. There it is nothing. Between June 1 and July 15, the average temperature was 3.3 ºC above normal. In these six weeks, we have suffered two official heat waves, an extreme episode that did not become extreme and, according to AEMETwe are already on the rise of the next wave this Sunday. So much so that the heat begins to be the least of it. The central question of 2026 is simple: if we cross the heat threshold three times in five weeks, isn’t something broken in that threshold? In Xataka "It’s brutal": Meteorologists have taken a look at the heat forecasts for next week and they are not optimistic The third wave does not exist yet. I don’t want to mislead anyone. AEMET has issued an information note (it is not yet a special notice) and this is because, although we know that there will be a generalized thermal rise, the criteria remain extremely strict. Spokesman Rubén del Campo talked about temperatures “extraordinarily high” and maximum temperatures of up to 44 ºC in the southern half. But the duration, extent and strength is yet to be defined. What is clear is that, if it were not, it would be just barely. That’s why what happens next week doesn’t change the general picture. Not only would it be three or four extreme heat episodes in six weeks, but some climatologists such as Jorge Olcina They also add the “Saharan advection at the end of May” and speak of four episodes in eight weeks. With old reference periods, we would probably be in those terms. But how explained José Ángel Núñez and Rubén del Campo On the agency’s official blog, the definition is not touched, precisely, to see things like what we are seeing. That is, what the threshold is doing is clearly showing that everything is changing. According to the agency’s own studybetween 2001 and 2025 Spain registered 91 heat waves compared to 43 in the period 1976-2000, and the days under the wave went from 210 to 510. This summer does not fit the threshold, it is true. But it fits perfectly with the trend. In Xataka Today the heatwave begins and the meteorologists are clear: "They paint coarse for the Mediterranean regions of Spain" And that’s the problem. The ISCIII MoMo system, the statistical model that indicates excess mortality, attributed 3,649 deaths to the heat last summer, the second worst figure of the decade. The problem here, as we pointed out a few days ago, is that in 2026 we will already we have spent half of that excess before the dog days begin (the worst part of summer). Meteorology has shown us that, at any moment, the situation can change suddenly. What remains is to wait, but the feeling that the world is changing faster than our adaptations to it has stopped being a fear and has begun to become something very real. Image | Meteociel In Xataka |Neither London nor the United Kingdom: the NASA map that reveals where the grayest sky in Europe is (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news Spain is going to have three heat waves in six weeks. AEMET is clear: it is no longer a wave, it is the climate was originally published in Xataka by Javier Jimenez .

Every summer Spain is more of an oven. This map of AEMET records demonstrates it station by station

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Climate change is bringing increasingly hot summers and a rather hopeless consolation: increasingly it’s harder to remember a cool summer and the feeling that this torrid summer will be the coolest of our lives (this applies equally this summer to the previous one or next summer). And it’s not just sensations: there is data. Without going any further and according to AEMET datathe Spanish state has just experienced the most extreme heat wave ever recorded in the month of June with some days, June 22 and 23, 2026, which were the warmest of that month in Spain since at least 1950. +7.1 °C above usual values. Faced with this reality, someone has thought of marking the maximums recorded by the Spanish State Meteorological Agency on a map that reveals that the frequency and severity with which the temperature breaks records happens more and more often. And if the pattern holds, this historic June could be, in a few years, just a normal June. The dev and data analyst Adrian Maqueda has developed an interactive map from Spain showing each station in the AEMET network and the latest heat record that he has beaten. That there is a new record? (because unfortunately this summer it will surely happen again) Well, the map updates automatically. This system works with both maximum and minimum temperatures. The updated reading data and historical records come from AEMET’s OpenData. From here the readings are crossed to, in case of a new record, indicate it. The more recent the milestone, the more striking the color and the older the color, the more subdued. In this way it is intuitive to detect the thermal records on the map with the naked eye. Of course, it is not the same for a centennial station to set a record as for one that is only a few years old to do so. How hot it is (it doesn’t matter when you read this) Spain, in maximum temperatures Precisely what makes this map so valuable is how visual it is to verify that They are not isolated phenomena applicable to a specific areabut a pattern that covers the entire territory. And it happens more and more frequently: according to the Report on the State of the Climate in Spain 2025 According to AEMET, in Spain in the last decade 221 records for warm days have been broken and only 7 for cold days. Seen with perspective, the average temperature in Spain has gone up 1.75 °C since 1961 and The 12 warmest years in the historical series are all from the 21st century. The widespread and sustained increase in temperatures has direct consequences for health. In fact, the heat already kills us more than the cold. This trend is not exclusive to Spain: according to the World Meteorological Organizationheat waves in Europe are becoming more frequent, more intense and extending to regions that barely suffered from them before. And be careful because Europe is also the continent that comes out worst off. The Tama station (Cantabria) has just renewed its maximum Returning to the map, last week’s heat wave meant renewing a few of those orange circles to set records because of the network of 828 AEMET stations, 13 new maximum temperature records were recorded. For example, it is the case from Tama station (Liébana), in Cantabria: it reached 43.7 degrees on June 23, the highest temperature recorded in that community in any month of the year. The days were an oven, but the nights became tropical: in southern cities like Jaén or Segovia, the nighttime minimums exceeded 28 degrees. In Xataka | This map reveals the exact ‘climate clone’ of your city (and the result is surprising) In Xataka | The easiest way to understand global warming, in this climate map with data from 1940 Cover | Adrian Maqueda

While AEMET fears the second great heat wave of the year, meteorologists warn that “we have to prepare for harsher summers”

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At this point in July and with another heat wave showing its teeth starting next week, we can already say that high-latitude blockages are altering the forecast for the summer. And they alter it for the worse: meteorologists They take it for granted since the situation is going to be quite persistent. The data is worrying, but as meteorologist Mercedes Martín says that we have to “prepare for harsher summers” does not mean that “we have to resign ourselves.” “There has never been so much information available as now and, however, it is not always able to transform what we think, feel or make decisions,” explained to National Geographic Spain. And he is somewhat right “it is not to diminish the urgency of the climate crisis, but to prevent the message from always being trapped in the same tone of alarm.” But what exactly does that mean? There are reasons for alarm… Of course there are. Spain has warmed around 1.75 °C since 1961approximately double the global average, and summer is moving dangerously towards 2 °C. Since 1975 there have been registered 12 heat waves in Juneand half are from 2015 onwards: if between 1975 and 2000 there were two, between 2001 and 2025 there were ten. The March 2022 superclimate left PM10 peaks of 3,070 µg/m³ in the southeast. That is, about 68 times the WHO daily limit. And, if that were not enough, the Mediterranean is warming at an especially rapid rate (up to three times faster than other bodies of water). The problem is that we get used to this exceptionality very quickly. And yes, “problem” is the word. This has long since ceased to be something from 2100. June 2026 has been the second warmest June since 1961with an anomaly of 3.2 °C and the MoMo system estimated about 900 deaths attributable to heat that month alone. In France those figures have been much worse. That is, we are not talking about projections or statistics: we are talking about people dying every year. Our inability to translate climate data into accepted and acceptable policies costs lives. And what do we do? Because, as Martín points out, the permanent catastrophic tone saturates, tires and sometimes paralyzes more than it mobilizes. But, on the other hand, turning down the volume just when the numbers are getting worse (the worst fire year in three decades, the second warmest June, hundreds of deaths, etc…) can be read as subtracting urgency. The answer is simpler than it seems. Because, whether we like it or not, the big problem with climate communication has never been drama. It has been the enormous gap between knowing and doing. Although there are many things we can intuit, the truth is that climate change is putting us on an unprecedented path. These uncertainties are added to the difficulty of predicting anything related to the weather and generate the feeling of doing politics blindly. But it is not true: that France have 50 degree exits for the next few weeks is exactly the kind of thing we would expect. That figure will not be reached, it is true: but it contains almost everything. We just have to realize Image | Benbaso – Xataka In Xataka | Europe enjoys the cleanest skies in half a century. And that’s one of the reasons why this summer is burning up.

the AEMET rule to declare a heat wave in Spain

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We spent the summer talking about heat waves and extreme temperaturesbut sometimes it is difficult for us to differentiate exactly what they are. If we look back to the summer of 2025, we remember that there was constant talk of heat waves. We may have the feeling that July and August were a huge heat wave. However, if we look at the data from the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET)we will see that only 3 heat waves were recorded in the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands and 2 in the Canary Islands. The key is that they were long heat waves. Without going any further, the first of them extended from June 18 to July 4. The next one arrived on July 15, so we didn’t even have two weeks of respite. Be that as it may, the concept of a heat wave is somewhat diffuse. It is not described the same in some countries as in others, and even has variations in the same country. Of course, no matter what definition we stick to, it is clear that they are becoming more and more intense. That is why it is so important to take measures against global warming. What exactly is a heat wave: the scientific definition Actually, There is no single definition of what a heat wave is.. Broadly speaking, it can be considered a prolonged period of extreme temperatures for a specific region. As we have already seen, each country has its own definition, which usually follows historically selected criteria. Even institutions can have very specific definitions. For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) define a heat wave as an unusually hot and dry or hot and humid period in a specific place, with visible effects on nature and people’s health. Contrary to what usually happens with the definitions of different countries, these two institutions include the health of people and the effects on nature as important factors in the definition of a heat wave. The three requirements of the AEMET to declare a heat wave in Spain In the case of Spain, the criteria to describe a heat wave They are provided by the AEMET. According to this, three requirements must be met: Duration of at least 3 consecutive days Detection of extremely high temperatures in at least 10% of the reference observatories Maximums located above the 95th percentile of temperatures measured between July and August from 1971 to 2000. These criteria refer to mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands.. With the Canary Islands there is an exception, since they only have 6 observatories. If we obeyed the 10% rule, it would be enough to detect extreme temperatures above the guidelines in only one of them. It is too little, so there is a special requirement that at least two observatories detect temperatures above the 95th percentile. How long does a heat wave last? There is no defined duration for a heat wave. As we have seen, in Spain it must last at least 3 consecutive days to be considered as such. And from there to heaven. At the moment, the longest that has been recorded in Spain lasted 26 days and It was produced in 2015. It should be noted that in 2022 the heat waves were shorter, but it stands out for being the year with the most heat wave days added together. A total of 41, to which 2025 came dangerously close, with 33 days under a heat wave. Other countries, according to their criteria, have experienced heat waves that may be shorter, but very surprising due to their location. For example, in 2025, the subarctic regions of Norway, Sweden and Finland recorded their worst heat wave since records exist, with 21 consecutive days and temperatures that exceeded 30°C within the Arctic Circle itself. Why does the temperature threshold change depending on the province? As we have already seen, for the AEMET, one of its criteria when defining a heat wave is that the reference stations register temperatures above the 95th percentile measured in July and August from 1971 to 2000. Logically, each province will have different records. The records of Seville will not be the same as those of Oviedo. The 95th percentile temperature will be much higher in the Andalusian capital than in the Asturian capital. Be that as it may, it should be noted that there is no threshold per province, but rather per reference station. Each province may have several of these seasons, with slightly different temperatures. To give an example based on AEMET datain Jaén there are three seasons, whose thresholds are 39ºC, 40ºC and 42ºC. If we go to colder areas, in A Coruña there are three seasons and their thresholds are 29.2ºC, 30ºC and 31.6ºC. How to know if there is a heat wave alert in your autonomous community The best way to know if there is a heat wave in our autonomous community or an alert for intensely high temperatures is to stay up to date with AEMET updates. In any case, it should be noted that, individually, we are more interested in being up to date with the notices. We may not have a heat wave for a few days, because there are not enough stations in the region that meet the criteria, but there may be temperatures high enough in specific points to put people’s health at risk. Therefore, we must make a monitoring unusually high temperature alerts; which, as with rain or wind, follow a color code (green, yellow, orange or red) to indicate the level of risk and the measures to take. Real-time weather warning map: from yellow alert to red warning Unusually high temperature alerts are defined with three colors. Yellow refers to significant risk, orange to high risk and red to extreme risk.. If the area is colored green (or gray in the case of maps), there is no risk. Every day, the AEMET updates its color warning maps, so it is important … Read more

We are at 44 degrees and AEMET says that the worst is yet to come. The good news is that we already know when thermal relief arrives.

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We’re sweating, let’s face it. And it’s Monday and you don’t even want to look at the car thermometer. Above all, because AEMET has already been warning that the worst is coming on Tuesday: even 44 degrees in the interior valleys, hellish nights in the southeast and anomalies of more than 20 degrees in the north. And yet, at the bottom of weather prediction models (where hours almost become weeks) cold scenarios begin to appear. “Anomalies of -12 degrees to start July“, you hear them say. And yes, the map is correct, the data says that. The problem is everything else. Although first of all, good news: thermal relief is close. “It will arrive in the middle of the week”a breath of fresher air” from the northwest. This will help cool the heat that “has settled in much of the Iberian Peninsula during the end of spring and the beginning of summer.” It doesn’t mean, of course, that it won’t be hot. Even if (as some maps point out) temperatures stay a couple of degrees below normal, it will still be hot. However, the decline will be clear. For reference, Bilbao will go from 42 to 29 in 48 hours. And now let’s continue with July. Indeed, some outputs of AIFS v2the European Center’s artificial intelligence model, are showing very curious anomalies for the first days of July. There are, in fact, three traps: the first is the deadline. Ten days, whether we like it or not, is still a long time to close a forecast. The second is that we are talking about anomalies: -12 degrees of anomaly is a lot, yes. But above July levels it is not ‘as much’ as ​​it might seem. At most we will have spring weather left. Something that will be well received, but that can become a problem if we do not manage expectations correctly. The last trap is to understand that ‘a week’ is not ‘a weather’. It is true that we have already had two very rare high temperature events (which, it seems, are caused by variations in the jet stream). It is also true that the idea of ​​a cold first of July conveys a certain idea of ​​a thermal ‘roller coaster’. But neither an early heat wave nor a thermal bump changes the reality: that summer is getting harsher. That is to say, we run the risk of the idea that “the weather is crazy” take hold when it is a lie. We do not live in a world where cold and heat are distributed as if the days were distributed in a lottery: we live in a world that is warming. Which heats up much hotter and faster than we would like. What can we expect? In the short term, a little more heat and a little thermal relief. There will be some showers in the west, first; and in the east, later. Then, if everything ends up being confirmed, a few days that are a little cooler (and wetter than normal). In the medium term, everything indicates that more of the same: hot, very hot. Image | BenBaso In Xataka | This map reveals the exact ‘climate clone’ of your city (and the result is surprising)

“Temperatures between 5 or 10 degrees above normal will continue,” says Rodríguez Marcos of AEMET.

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We’ve known this for weeks. AEMET believes that the June-July-August quarter of 2026 will be in the warm tertile throughout Spain and the truth is that it is not a very risky bet. Of the 10 heat waves that AEMET has been counted in June in the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands since 1975half are concentrated in the last decade. The underlying problem is that, as we are seeing, June has ceased to be a ‘transition’ month to join (statistically and climatically) the summer ‘in a chemically pure state’. Like ‘June’ is ‘summer’? Climatologically it already was, of course. The climatic summer began on June 1. The difference is what the AEMET tells us: the same definition of heat waves was calibrated taking into account the highest temperatures of July and August. That it is increasingly common for June to begin to exceed these temperatures is a clear indication of what we are talking about. Above all, because the wave of June 2025 (from June 18 to July 4) It lasted 17 days and affected 40 provinces: the third longest and the third most extensive of the series. It’s not that this isn’t “the heat from before”, it’s that the situation is out of control. What does this translate into? As explained Francisco Javier Rodríguez Marcos of the AEMET, what the models say is that the temperatures this quarter will be among the 30 highest on record. This will especially affect the northern area, the east of the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands. The line to overcome is clear: the 46 ºC that El Granado (Huelva) reached on June 29 of last year. It is, so far, the highest temperature ever recorded in Spain in the month of June. But in 2026 isn’t that ‘weird’? It is true that we are coming from the wettest winter in 47 years, but it is also true that April was the warmest April in the historical series. That is, no one knows what is ‘normal’ in 2026 and, in this sense, no one can say that the scenario that is drawn is strange. The important thing is to prepare. In some ways, early waves have a potentially greater health impact because the body is not yet acclimated to the heat at the beginning of the season. In this sense, it is best to advance the preparation of the homes (insulation, cooling, night ventilation) and start preparing our daily lives. Image | Tropical TidBits In Xataka | There are areas of Pakistan and India touching 50º C: human beings are discovering where their physiological limit is

AEMET is clear that it does not end here

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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 In Xataka | Oviedo is at 34º C in the middle of May and AEMET knows that it is the beginning of something more: a brutal heat ridge

Oviedo has already broken its heat record for May and AEMET warns that this has only just begun

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Let’s stay with a figure: 34.3. It is, almost certainly, the most important data of the week. On Thursday, May 21, 2026, the thermometers of the city of Oviedo They recorded a temperature of 34.3 degrees. 1.8 ºC more than the highest temperature ever recorded in May in the capital of the Principality. AEMET is convinced that between today and the weekend will be reached again (or even exceeded) this temperature. And yet, this is only a tiny part of the story. Because the real story is that, in a region structurally protected by its oceanic climate, records are being broken in ways we would not have been able to imagine. And that’s without the country being in a ‘heat wave’. What is happening? Although There is some controversy with the namewhat is happening is called ‘heat dome‘. That is, a subtropical anticyclonic ridge, anomalously powerful for this time of year, which is trapping very warm air above our heads. Europe is bearing the brunt, it is true. Countries such as France, Germany, the Netherlands and the British Isles they are seeing temperatures between 10 and 15 degrees above normal. If everything goes as predicted by the models, the May records of half of Europe are going to explode on the 25th of this month. And, of course, we are noticing that. As the haze falls on the Canary Islands (right at the eastern vertex of the dome), a good part of the country will suffer considerable heat. We talk about more than 34 degrees in Asturias and the Basque Country and 38 in the Guadiana valleys. The Guadalquivir valley is already above 35. And, as I say, all this without heat waves. Despite the magnitude of the episode, AEMET does not rate it like a heat wave in peninsular Spain. It is not. We already know that the operational definition requires exceeding the 95th percentile of daily maximum temperatures for the July-August quarter for at least three days and, of course, we are not going to go to that extreme. What does all this heat tell us? Let’s be honest. For Andújar or Badajoz to reach 38 degrees on May 21 is rare, but not exceptional. But for Oviedo to reach 34.3 is a very different thing. It shows, above all, that the Cantabrian coast is beginning to stop being a “climate refuge.” Why is all this important? In addition to an underlying climate issue, this warm episode is important because it is dangerous. The first extreme heat of the year is the deadliest because the population has not gone through the period of physiological acclimatization produced by progressive exposure to summer heat. That is, because it is May and the Iberian summer has truly begun. Image | Tropical TidBits In Xataka | The Gulf Stream is dying. Someone’s idea to solve it dates back to the 1950s: closing the Bering Strait

After the hottest April since there are records, AEMET already foresees the following change: days of “winter atmosphere”

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After an unprecedented April in Spain (with temperatures more than three degrees above the average of the last 40 years), the Atlantic has decided to complicate our lives. In the coming days, a deep storm will move from the area around Iceland towards our coordinates, causing a sharp thermal drop between Saturday, May 9 and Monday, May 11. Are we facing a “cold wave” in May? No, nothing like that. We are not even facing something exceptional. Maritime polar air advections are a common pattern in Spanish springs. The strange thing is not the arrival of cold, the strange thing is how warm the air we have right now is. That is to say, we are going to notice the thermal dropYeah; but more because the temperatures are abnormally high (and we have become accustomed to them) than because the storm is colder than usual. It’s not her, it’s us. And here is the problem. As far as we know, climate change does not increase the frequency of polar irruptions in May, but it does increase their potential damage by advancing flowering, budding and fruit set. The paradox arises that exactly the same cold as any previous year can generate enormous destruction. What can we expect? Wednesday 6: The DANA that has been giving us problems so far this week is on its way to reintegrating into general circulation and is moving towards France. Thursday 7 – Friday 8: Here a new cold storm comes into action that will hit the west of Portugal, causing some days that are “very warm for the season”, according to AEMET. Friday the 8th: An associated Atlantic front will advance towards the Peninsula and we will begin to see its effects in the form of storms throughout the north. The accumulated ones will not be very large, but they will not be anecdotal either. Saturday 9 – Sunday 10: The party starts here. The storm will fully reach the Peninsula and, after a warm Thursday and Friday, the temperature drop will be abrupt. Tiempo.com talks about a thermal drop between 8 and 10 degrees. Starting Monday the 11th: With the available data, it seems reasonable to expect the cold environment to last a few more days. However, it is early to say. What AEMET says. The Agency It doesn’t say ‘polar’ at any point.but its characterization is very clear: speaks of the episode as a change from “high temperatures for the season” to “winter atmosphere” in a matter of 24-48 hours. It is very difficult to overcome the very strange month of January that we are experiencing, but 2026 is willing to try. Image | BenBaso In Xataka | The current that warms Europe will weaken by 51% before the end of the century. And Spain, according to experts, is already beginning to notice

We have been thinking for 40 years that Spain escaped Chernobyl because it was far away. AEMET has discovered that it was pure luck

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“When the lava enters the tanks, it will cause approximately 7,000 cubic meters of water to overheat and evaporate, causing a significant thermal explosion. Our estimates are between two and four megatons. It will destroy absolutely everything within a 30-kilometer radius, including the three remaining reactors at Chernobyl. Then, all the radioactive material in the nuclei will be ejected with virulence and propagated by a large seismic wave. It can reach approximately 200 kilometers and could be lethal to the entire population of kyiv and much of Minsk. The radiation release will be immense and will impact Soviet Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, as well as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and East Germany.” Since, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, AEMET published meteorological reconstruction that explained why Spain was left out of the radioactive cloud that affected a good part of Europe, I can’t forget those words from the miniseries which HBO released a few years ago. Mostly because it was pure luck. Pure luck? But Ukraine is very far away. That’s what we used to think, that Spain was spared the hardest part of the Chernobyl hit because we were so far away. However, data from meteorologist Benito Jose Fuentes They say something else: three successive atmospheric reconfigurations that, at the critical moment, sent the radioactive cloud in another direction. But let’s go step by step. Indeed, on April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant became an unstable “pressure cooker” whose explosion spread radiation throughout much of the continent. In fact, that radiation reached Spain shortly after: there is evidence of air filters in Valencia that detected the radioactivity on May 2, 3 and 4. However, we avoided the worst of the blow. According to Fuentes Lópezthe peninsula was at least twice (on April 29 and the days before May 2) “one turn of the wind” away from receiving a direct blow. Reconstructing the disaster. Sources Lopez has published a simplified simulation that reconstructs on a cartographic scale the evolution of the wind at medium and high levels of the atmosphere. This simulation is what gives us the fundamental keys. To begin with, at midday on April 26, a high pressure ridge extended between the Chernobyl zone and Scandinavia. This caused the winds (at 1,700 meters above sea level) to channel the pollutants to the north and Belarus, the Baltic republics, Sweden and Finland took the first hit. The world found out what was happening, precisely, through the sensors of a Swedish nuclear power plant two days later. Spain plays it. On April 29, the pattern changed and a storm in the Mediterranean (and a ridge in Portugal) turned the wind towards Central Europe. According to Fuentes López’s simulations, with this new direction it was a matter of hours before the radioactivity reached Spain. However, between May 1 and 2, a trough pushed the radioactive cloud towards Great Britain (and the Portuguese ridge acted as a wall that diverted the rest of the smaller clouds towards Italy and the Balkans). A reminder. The curious thing about all this is that, according to AEMET datathe dispersion was due to higher atmospheric waves at high levels and not to surface patterns such as storms and anticyclones. That is to say, the work (in addition to a mind-blowing work of atmospheric history) is a reminder that we normally relate to a small part of the weather. That, of course, is a mistake. The atmosphere is a very complex creature full of levels, teleconnections and strange relationships. We are at stake understanding it better. And I am no longer talking about climate change, or phenomena of that type. I’m saying that in most cases, as we already explained many expertsthe profound psychological, social and cultural consequences “turned out to be a much bigger problem than the radiation.” At the climatic level they will also be. And we really don’t know how to handle them well. Image | AEMET In Xataka | We believed that the “elephant’s foot” was the most radioactive point in Chernobyl reactor 4. we were wrong

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