What impact will Hurricane Gabrielle have on the weather as it approaches Spain?

In the last few days Spain has experienced a very noticeable and abrupt change in the weather. Since last weekend the temperatures have dropped drastically and the rains have been the protagonist in some areas of the Spanish mainland.

The arrival of autumn has brought somewhat more unstable weather and cooler days, which have already been experienced in much of the country and which the state meteorological agency (Aemet) has indicated in its weather forecasts.

In fact, the first frosts and snowfalls of the season have already been recorded in the Pyrenees and, in areas of Castilla y León and the Basque Country, thermometers have recorded temperatures below 5C.

Looking ahead to the next few days, Aemet points out that this will change, as we will notice a generalised rise in temperatures and somewhat more stable weather in most of the Spain.

But this will be confronted over the weekend with the possible influence with the passage of hurricane Gabrielle near the country.

Meteorologist Mario Picazo has spoken about it and, in his forecast for eltiempo.es, he has warned about what we can expect from the weather situation at the end of the week. Among other things, he indicated that "we will be keeping an eye on the remains of hurricane Gabrielle, which could approach the northwest of the Spanish mainland at weekend".

Delving deeper into this, Picazo revealed the following: "It will pass near the Azores late on Friday with winds of about 150 km/h, then initiating a transition to an extratropical storm. By Saturday it should be a post-tropical system with winds of around 100 km/h over open ocean, and by early Sunday morning, as it approaches Portugal and Spain, it is expected to have weakened to around 75 km/h".

Therefore the hurricane as such will have become something more like a storm when it affects the country, but we will not be exempt from feeling the consequences of its path near Spain.

"Although Gabrielle will no longer arrive as a hurricane, it could leave episodes of heavy rain, strong gusts of wind on the coast and strong waves, especially on the west coast of Portugal and Galicia, between Saturday night and Sunday," explained Picazo in a post on his X account, where he indicated that he will continue to update information on Hurricane Gabrielle "day by day".

Therefore, although temperatures will rise in almost all of Spain on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the impact of the trajectory and intensity of Hurricane Gabrielle could mean that the weekend will be affected by rainfall in the western part of the country, although there are still a few days to know exactly what the final effects will be.