Madrid: Spain has experienced its hottest spring in over 60 years of recordkeeping, with average temperatures almost two degrees Celsius above average, the national weather agency reported Wednesday.
The country also saw its second driest-ever spring on record, behind that of 1995, the AEMET agency said as a prolonged drought hits its key agricultural sector.
Spain, which had its hottest year on record in 2022, is expected to be one of the worst-hit EU countries in terms of climate change.
AEMET reported the average temperature was “14.2 degrees Celsius (57.5 degrees Fahrenheit), which was 1.8 C hotter” than normal.
That is “extremely hot, exceeding 1997 — the hottest spring up to now — by 0.3 C,” it noted.
“The spring of 2023 was the hottest spring on record in Spain,” AEMET reported, referring to a three-month period that began in March.
In late April, Spain suffered a major heatwave with local temperatures up to 20 C above average, exacerbating the drought.
May began with temperatures slightly higher than average which then dropped below the average in the second half of the month with heavy rainfall that has helped somewhat but not alleviated the drought.
“Until almost mid-May, there was no rain,” said AEMET spokesman Ruben del Campo.
“With the rains in the second half of May, the situation has eased a little.”
However, the drought, “which is measured over the longer term, has not been resolved,” he said.
How long it would continue would depend on the levels of rainfall later in the year, he said.
“In this hydrological year so far, we’ve seen a 20 percent shortage in rainfall so for that to be resolved, it would need to rain 20 percent more (than usual) in autumn,” he said.
