27-05-2025
UK tourists warned as Spain to be 'hotter than Caribbean' at key holiday time
Spain is preparing for another scorching end to May, with temperatures in the southern regions expected to reach 40C (104F) due to high-pressure zones and a surge of hot, dry air causing temperatures to rise more than 10C above the seasonal average.
This heatwave arrives almost exactly three years after parts of Spain recorded their hottest May since records began, with temperatures at Seville airport hitting 41C.
Rubén del Campo, a spokesperson for Spain's meteorological office, Aemet, said: "The last week of May will see a high-temperature episode across a good part of the peninsula, with the kind of temperatures normally seen in high summer, especially from Wednesday,".
Read more: Foreign Office warns UK tourists
"In some southern parts of the peninsula, we could see maximum temperatures of more than 40C, and the temperature won't drop below 20C in that region or in Mediterranean areas. We're talking about maximum temperatures that are between five and 10 degrees above normal for this time of year. In some areas, the temperatures will be more than 10 degrees above normal on Thursday."
Del Campo attributed the soaring temperatures to high-pressure areas over the peninsula – "which guarantee stable weather with few clouds and a lot of sun" – and the arrival of a mass of dry, warm air over the peninsula from North Africa.
He noted that the most impacted areas would be south-east Spain, its central region, and the Ebro Valley in the north-east of the country. The two hottest days this week – likely Thursday and Friday – are predicted to see temperatures soar to 35C in central and northern regions and 40C along the Guadalquivir River in Andalucía.
The heatwave is expected to persist until at least Saturday, when atmospheric instability could usher in clouds, dust clouds, and a drop in temperatures.
Spain's highest ever temperature was recorded in August 2021, when the mercury in the Andalucían town of Montoro, near Córdoba, hit 47.4C.
A 2022 Aemet study revealed that the onset of 30C temperatures across Spain and the Balearic islands had arrived an average of 20 to 40 days earlier over the past 71 years. "The summer is eating up the spring," Del Campo told El País at the time.
"What's happening fits perfectly with a situation where you have a warmer planet," he said, adding that the rise in temperatures was a "direct and palpable [consequence] of climate change ... The climate in Spain isn't the one we used to know. It's got more extreme."
