Spain records over 44°C in the first heat wave of the summer

A couple ride a Vespa motorcycle after a street thermometer reads 44 degrees Celsius in Seville

a Spain Your first experience heat wave Summer and thermometers exceeded 44 degrees Celsius this Monday 26 in Andalusia, according to the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet), which declared a state of alert in several regions. The heat wave began on Sunday, and this Monday temperatures exceeded 38 degrees Celsius in Madrid and reached 44.4 degrees Celsius in the Andalusian town of El Granado in the province of Huelva, according to Emmett. Today, Sunday, the agency indicated that the temperature near the border with Portugal reached 43.8 degrees Celsius, which expects a decrease in heat during this week. In Seville, central Andalusia, the temperature was 42.9 degrees Celsius, which prompted changes in the working hours of those who work outdoors to avoid heatstroke. “The usual hours are 8:00 am to 3:30 pm,” Miguel Angel, a construction worker, explained to AFPTV, but “we changed it to 7:00 am to 2:30 pm.” “Three years ago, I had four heatstrokes [enquanto trabalhava]Strokes in which you lose consciousness. “Today I take a lot of precautions,” he added. The rise in temperatures prompted the authorities to activate the Anti-Heat Plan, which identifies different levels of risk for the population, especially for vulnerable groups, and allows for adjustments to the opening hours of schools and outdoor work.

In the year 2022, many workers died in the line of duty in Spain due to extreme temperatures. These deaths prompted the authorities to strengthen measures to protect employees, banning work during hot hours. High temperatures are common in the summer in Spain, especially in the south. However, for several years now the country has experienced an increase in heat waves. The frequency of such heat episodes in the past decade is almost three times higher than in previous years. This is happening in line with the increase in summer at a rate of about ten days per decade since the 1980s,” Aemet spokesman Rubén Del Campo explained in a letter to the press. At the end of April, an early wave of extreme temperatures set the absolute record for the month of April in the sub- Spain Island, 38.8°C, which is a more common level for months like July or August.

An episode of heat would have been “almost impossible without climate change,” according to a study by World Weather Attribution (WWA), a global network of scientists analyzing the relationship between extreme weather events and climate disturbances. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Europe is the continent that is warming the fastest due to climate change, and its average temperature is already 2.3 degrees higher than in the pre-industrial era.

* With information from AFP