The warmest day of the entire heat wave in August – and all summer – in Spain was Tuesday. , on the 11th and 12th of this month they marked heat records. The agency also foresees that the first 20 days of this month (in a mixture of records with forecasts) they are the warmest in Spain since there are records: “There are no precedents,” says the agency, “of a period between August 1 and 20 as warm as the 2025” on Tuesday, 165 AEMET stations exceeded or matched the 40 degrees of maximum.
The situation on Tuesday, as this Wednesday was known, was brutal at the Aemet station in Badajoz Universidad, in Badajoz, where at 13.50 hours it marked 45.5 degrees. Shortly after, at 14.20, in Tablada, in Seville, there were 45.2 degrees. (when the minimums do not fall from 25 degrees) in the same Sevillian town with 29.8 degrees. In Villarrasa, in Huelva, there were 29.7 degrees.
José Luis Camacho, spokesman for the AEMET, explained Wednesday that the average of the first 20 days of August is calculated from the already observed data – corresponding to the first 13 days of the month – and the forecasts for the remaining days until the end of the heat wave, which the state agency waiting. He comments that, following this estimate, the current heat wave can be resembled to that of 2003, a phenomenon “that affected much of Western Europe, in which there was a very high mortality and that caught us a little by surprise.”
Now, 22 years later, climate change has turned heat waves into increasingly durable, intense and more frequent episodes. The extreme temperatures that hit Spain since August 3 have been 12 days in which some cities have registered records for the month. Lleida, for example, on August 11 registered 41.9 degrees of maximum, exceeding the 2023 record, at 0.5 degrees. The same happened in Segovia with the highest minimum temperature, with 26.2 on August 10, exceeding the maximum of two years ago, which was 25.9 degrees.
Camacho explains that the minimum temperatures so high that there have been are the ones that have caused the most impact, not only in the lack of sleep that citizens live, but also because of the unusual, especially in some areas of the Peninsula. “One night in which the temperature does not fall from almost 27 degrees in Segovia attracts enough attention, it is a city that is 1,000 meters high,” said the specialist.
This Wednesday there has been a slight decrease in temperatures, although heat did not abandon any region in the country. For this Thursday, however, the high temperatures will rebound again in the Peninsula and the Canary Islands. According to the AEMET, the thermal increase will be especially noticed in the Northwest quadrant, especially in Galicia, where between 38 and 40 degrees, on the northern plateau and inside the region. In the East and South Peninsular, the thermometers will exceed 40 or 42 degrees.
According to the forecasts of the state agency, this Thursday no autonomous community is in red notice due to high temperatures, although Andalusia, Aragon, Castilla-La Mancha, Catalonia, Extremadura and Galicia maintain orange warning due to important risk. Instead, the fire risk map shows much of Spain at very high or extreme levels.
Throughout the weekend, temperatures will continue to increase, extending to the eastern half. On Friday this ascent will be remarkable, “even extraordinary” in the Cantabrian, where 40 degrees can be reached. Sunday is expected to be the day with the highest values, with records of 42 or 44 degrees in the Guadalquivir Valley and with less probability and extension in the valleys of the Guadiana and the Safe and in the depressions of the Northeast.
The agency indicates that most likely the temperatures from the west, given the progressive entrance of a fresher air mass of the Atlantic. This will be extended during the days following the entire peninsula and will lead to “more typical temperatures of these dates and thus probably end this episode of heat wave.”
August has not been the only month to register records or extreme temperatures. June was the warmest of the historical series (1961-2024), with 3.6 degrees above the average. Julio also had a warm character, with an average temperature on the 23.8 degree peninsula, which is 0.7 degrees more than this month average in the 1991-2020 period, as reported on Wednesday the Aemet. Camacho stressed: “The average temperature of the month of June on the Peninsula has been the same as if it were July. That already gives us fuel so that the summer together is really warm. And of August, for the moment, we carry half.”
The Minister of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Sara Aagesen, recalled these figures in relation to the fires that have whipped Spain in recent days: “All this contributes to the fact that situations also in the forests are much more complicated,” he said.
The heat wave that suffocates Spain also hits the rest of Europe, in countries such as Portugal, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and even Turkey, with extreme temperatures above 40 degrees.
