Temperatures for the month were the highest on record. Spain anticipates fire monitoring campaign.
Mainland Spain and Portugal have broken their temperature records for the month of April, authorities said on Friday (28/04), as the nations faced a heatwave exceptionally early in the year, which increases the fire risk.
The thermometer hit 38.8 ºC at Córdoba city airportin southern Spain on Thursday 27/4, beating the previous record of 38.6 ºC in the city of Elche in 2011 in the east of the country, informed the national meteorological agency AEMET.
Spain registers record heat for the month of April, with a temperature of 38.8°C, in Cordoba
(Photo: Cristina Quicler/AFP)
These “interim data” have yet to be confirmed, a process that could take several days, an agency spokesman said.
The highest temperature in all of Spain in April, however, was recorded in 2013 in the Canary Islands, off the northwest coast of Africa, when the thermometer touched 40.2 ºC.
In Portugal, the temperature in the city of Mora in the center of the country hit 36.9 degrees on Thursday, surpassing the record of 36 degrees set in April 1945 in the northeastern city of Pinhão, according to meteorological agency data .IPMA.
While temperatures started to drop in Portugal on Friday, the scorching heat persisted across much of Spain, with the thermometer hitting 36C in Córdoba.
Madrid opened its ‘urban beach’, a series of fountains along the Manzanares River, on Friday 28 April, a month earlier than usual. “Imagine what summer will be like if we have so much heat in spring,” said Patricia Solozaga while her daughter was playing happily with the water jets.
The unusually early heat wave of the year was driven by a very hot, dry air mass from Africa.
fire monitoring
The scorching temperatures have set off alarms about a high fire risk and exacerbated drought conditions that have already led some farmers in Spain to not plant seeds this year.
The Spanish government said it will start its forest fire monitoring campaign on Friday April 28, a month and a half earlier than usual due to the anticipated arrival of high temperatures.
This will involve adding reinforcements to local fire crews and “continuous monitoring of bushfires” across the country, the interior ministry said in a statement.
The flames have devastated around 54,000 hectares of land in Spain so far this year, compared to just over 17,000 hectares in the same period in 2022, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.
To the last year, Spain had the hottest year since records began, and UN figures suggest that nearly 75% of their land is susceptible to desertification due to climate change.
You Water tanks are half full all over the country and farmers union COAG says 60% of farmland is “stuffy” due to lack of rain.
Spain is the world’s largest exporter of olive oil and an important source of fruit and vegetables in Europe.
Experts say the climate change driven by human activity it is increasing the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts and wildfires.
This content is a work originally published by the German DW agency. The opinion expressed by the publication does not reflect or represent the opinion of this portal or its collaborators.
Source: Terra
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