Hot 'terral' wind forecast to turn up the heat in these parts of Malaga and the Costa del Sol
After a stifling Tuesday in the province, Spain's state weather agency (Aemet) is forecasting temperatures of around 40C for first time this summer
Malaga city, the Costa del Sol and other areas of the province area are preparing to experience what will probably be the hottest episode so far this summer, which is already stifling and determined to break records, on land and also at sea. It is because a hot land-based 'terral' wind is expected to blow in from Friday onwards. And, depending on the time it arrives, the thermometers are expected to rise.
Juan de Dios del Pino is the spokesperson for Aemet, Spain's state meteorological agency, in the Andalucía region. He suggests that the terral wind could stay even until Monday. At the moment, the forecast is for temperatures slightly below 40C , but it is too early to be more accurate. And in any case, this thermal upturn will also raise the mercury to between 24 and 26C at night, which will be even more tropical than usual.
As for weather alerts, we are not in the period of them being activated yet. It would be an amber level on the Costa del Sol, in Malaga city and the Guadalhorce valley if 39C are forecast. This is more than likely to be the case. Inland, the level is set at 40C.
"The worst could come on Friday, when a trough will come in and the wind will change to westerly. That is to say, we will probably have the terral wind in the usual areas of the province of Malaga. On this occasion and depending on the time it enters, we could reach the first 40C of summer in Malaga", warned José Luis Escudero in his SUR weather blog 'Tormentas y rayos' (storms and lightning),.
The terral, a genuine north-westerly wind, is expected to be accompanied by a drop in sea temperatures. With this wind, the phenomenon of "upwelling" is likely, the warmer water on the surface moves out to sea and the rise of the colder currents with more nutrients is favoured. It is a kind of natural resetting of the water. In a similar situation, last Thursday the buoy in Malaga port was measuring above 27C and by Tuesday it had already dropped to 19 degrees.
Torrid Tuesday
Extreme - and stifling - heat is already threatening the inland parts of Malaga province. In fact, Aemet activated a yellow warning for high temperatures in Antequera on Tuesday, where temperatures were expected to reach 39C. The warning was in force between 1pm and 9pm. At five o'clock in the afternoon, the temperature in the town famous for the El Torcal mountain range was already over 38 degrees. In addition, tomorrow, Thursday, the alert will be activated again for similar reasons.
Also inland, mid-afternoon temperatures were above 37.5C in Ronda, while in Malaga city the temperature did not exceed 32C according to the gauges at the weather station at the airport, while in other places such as Coín it was close to 35C. For its part, in Vélez it was above 31 and Marbella maintained a pleasant 26.5 degrees.
Antequera was not the only alert of the day in the Andalucía region. All the provinces - with the exception of Almeria - experienced a torrid Tuesday with the mercury levels soaring. The warnings were maintained until nine o'clock at night and were amber in Cordoba, Granada, Jaen and Seville, where, according to Aemet, the thermometers were forecast to reach 41C. In fact, the ten highest temperatures in the country at five o'clock in the afternoon were marked by different locations in Seville, Cordoba, Granada, Jaen and Huelva.
