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Ignacio Lillo
Malaga
Thursday, 3 August 2023, 14:48
The month of July was the hottest in Malaga city since official records began in 1942. According to the official Aemet weather station at Malaga Airport, the average temperature in was 29.5C, some 3.4 degrees higher than normal.
The average maximum was 34.3 degrees, up from the second hottest, 33.3C in 2015. While the average minimum at night was 24.6C - and during 12 nights the minimum did not drop below 25 degrees. It makes last month the warmest in 81 years of meteorological history, surpassing the July of 2015, which is the second warmest, with an average of 28.3 degrees.
This is mainy due to the "enormous" number of days of the hot terral winds that have occurred. "It used to be the norm to have four or five days with temperatures above 33 degrees in July. This figure has been increasing in recent years to an average of eight to nine days, but this July we have had 15 days above 33 degrees, of which eight had a maximum above 36C," said the director of Aemet's weather centre in Malaga, Jesus Riesco.
More terral wind
All the most torrid years of the historical series in July, according to the thermometer at the airport, have been in the 21st century: 2023, 2015, 2021, 2009 and 2019. "The 14 warmest months of July have been this century, this gives us clues as to what is happening," Riesco said.
But what has happened to bring about such extreme weather? The first factor is the blast of heat that is carried with the terral and the "incredible succession" of it.
"What is certain is that the climate is behaving strangely, with more extreme phenomena and heatwaves; it has all the signs that it is climate change," Riesco said. "Heatwaves are going to continue to increase, and we are studying the increase of terral winds, something that would be very detrimental to Malaga in terms of tourism."
The Guadalhorce valley, Axarquia, Serrania de Ronda and Antequera, averaged 27.9 degrees, their second warmest month in history and 2.5 above the average. In Andalucía, it has been the fourth warmest July since 1961.
"This has been one of the hottest months I have known in my 64 years," said José Luis Escudero, expert in Malaga meteorology and head of the SUR blog Tormentas y Rayos (storms and lightning).
Three red warnings in just one month
With the extreme heat has come frequent red 'extreme risk' weather warnings over the past few weeks. In previous years there was not even one, but this July Aemet activated three red alerts for heat.
August also started with a new red level warning, which was activated on Wednesday 2 August due to the risk of the mercury exceeding 42 in Malaga city, on the western strip of the Costa del Sol and the lower part of the Guadalhorce valley.
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