How long will these summer-like temperatures in November continue on the Costa del Sol?

This November will surely go down in Malaga province's weather records for the high temperatures in the first half of the month. In fact, there is still no end in sight to the summer heat of San Martín, and Spain's state weather agency (Aemet) forecasts that the anticyclonic situation and the autumnal terral will continue throughout the week.

This Tuesday is expected to be the hottest day of the period, with highs of around 30C (or even higher) in parts of the Guadalhorce valley area (such as Coín), while in Malaga city and along the Costa del Sol it will be around 27-28 degrees. «It is going to be the hottest day, because it is expected that warm terral wind will enter the Guadalhorce valley; on the coast there may be a breeze from the south-southeast, which could cause the taro (sea mist) to appear», warned José Luis Escudero, an expert on the weather in Malaga and head of the SUR blog Tormentas y Rayos (thunderstorms and lightning).

At Malaga Airport, which is the official Aemet thermometer of the province for statistical purposes, Escudero forecasts 27-28 degrees, although he does not expect very strong westerly gusts. The researcher agrees that the atypically high temperatures for this time of year (5 to 8C above the average maximum, which is normally 20 degrees at this time of year) will continue at least until Sunday.

To put what is happening in context, Escudero compared the averages for the spring and summer months, to conclude that we currently have values that are on average between those of May (average highs of 24.3 degrees), October (24.1) and September (28.2).

On Sunday, the highest temperatures in Spain were reached in Axarquia, specifically in Rincon de la Victoria and Velez-Malaga, with 32.2 and 30.9C, respectively, according to Aemet records. But in general the whole province maintained extraordinary values, and that also included Malaga city, with 28.4 degrees.

However, this is very detrimental to water reserves and the drought crisis, both due to evaporation and to the greater demand for water due to the heat. As Escudero pointed out, no significant rainfall (in the form of storms and active fronts) is expected in the second half of the month.

Values as high as these in November have been recorded before. In fact, the absolute record maximum temperature at the airport weather station in the eleventh month of the year was in 1995 (another year remembered for the drought), with 30.4C. However, that year it occurred on the 4th, and therefore very close to October, whereas now it has almost been reached middle of the month.

The trend of increasingly summer-like autumns in Malaga is confirmed this year, after two records for extreme values were broken in 2022: the average of the highest maximum temperatures, with 22.9C, and the absolute average, with 18 degrees.