Lorraine Williamson
June 2024 could well be the first month ‘with a fresh character’ in Spain since April 2022. Although forecasts indicate that this summer could be one of the hottest in Spain’s history, the weather in June was not characterised by intense or persistent heat.
In recent weeks, there have been several periods that have cooled the atmosphere considerably, such as the one predicted for this weekend coming which has not been seen for more than two years in Spain. In some parts of the country, especially in the southwest, the Guadalquivir Valley, the Vegas del Guadiana and the countryside of Córdoba, high maximum temperatures have been measured. These were even above the average temperature for the month of June according to the climate average of the reference period. In the rest of the country, on the other hand, the values measured this month are more typical of early spring.
In the latter part of the month of June and with the astronomical summer that has just begun on Thursday, June 20, the evolution of the weather in June does not show a heat trend. Nor has a heatwave been recorded in Spain.
Daily average temperature
The AEMET has published the graph of the daily evolution of the average temperature on the Spanish peninsula in which you can see the variable trend in the behaviour of the average daily minimum and maximum temperatures in the average of the area area.
At first glance, the graph shows a rollercoaster in terms of the behaviour of the temperature in 2024. There are three temperature peaks and a fourth is predicted for June 26. Each of these four peaks was recorded in a different week, i.e. spread over the entire month of June. So far, the first has been the most remarkable, with an average temperature of over 23°C between June 6 and 7. That is more than 4 points above the average temperature for the period 1991-2020.
The next two temperature peaks were a bit more subdued. They took place a week later, on June 14 and 17 respectively. Both recorded an average temperature of over 20 ºC, slightly above the average temperature in this case. The forecast for the maximum peak on June 26 could again exceed 23 ºC, but would only be 2 points above the average temperature.
Number of days that were cooler than average
Although the beginning of the month was warm, with abnormally high temperatures during the first week of June, from June 7 there was a sharp drop in thermal values that placed us in abnormally low temperatures for the middle of June for the second and third weeks of the month.
From Sunday, June 9 to Sunday, June 23, temperatures were abnormally low. Only on Friday 14 and Monday 17 June did temperatures rise slightly above average.
After today’s predicted peak, temperatures will start to drop again. They should remain below average from Friday, June 28, and also into the beginning of July. If the temperature forecast for the last days of this month comes true, the Spanish mainland had a total of 17 days with temperatures below average for June.