Costa News Spain Breaking News | English News in Spain.
Monday, March 3, 2025 at 14:23
Spain has officially been without a real winter cold wave for two years. Official statistics from the state weather agency Aemet show that the 2023-2024 winter, along with the one in 2019-2020, was the warmest since 1961. The 2024-2025 season followed closely behind. Both December 2024, and January 2025 recorded temperatures that were 1C higher than usual. This is a clear result of climate changes.
What is the ‘proper’ cold wave? A cold wave does not just mean a sharp or sudden drop in temperature, say weather sources. This phenomenon, which occurs most often between December and the beginning of February, can be defined using three criteria: duration (how long it lasts), extent (how far it extends), and intensity. To be considered a ‘cold snap’, temperatures must be abnormally low and persist for a minimum of three consecutive days. They should also be recorded by at least 10 percent of stations in the country. These conditions have not been met in Spain since two years. Ten heat waves have occurred in this period.
The last “big cold snap” occurred in the winter of 2020-21, when the Filomena storm brought historic snowfall between 6 and 10 January 2021. However, the last “big cold snap” was in the winter of 2020-21, when the Filomena storm brought historic snowfall between 6 and 10 January 2021, affecting several areas of Spain and breaking all cold records, with temperatures in several regions falling below -15C and up to -25C in Molina de Aragón.
Aemet’s data indicates that there have been 31 coldwaves lasting 153 consecutive days this century. In contrast, 48 heat waves lasted a total 293 days. The heat waves lasted nearly twice as long as the cold snaps.
Aemet spokesperson Rubén del Campo stated that heat waves have been growing by about three days per decade. Winters warm at 0.16C per decadal and summers at 0.28C. Del Campo stated that, although winters are milder, summers are becoming hotter. They also take more and more days from what would normally be spring and fall.
Early and early blooming
Almond trees, for example, are a good example of how the high temperatures in the past few weeks changed their biological rhythms. Low frosts have also led to pests like pine processionary, those long rows of hairy catapillars which are normally controlled by winter cold. Fruit trees have also been affected by the lack of cold, as they need to accumulate enough ‘chilling time’ in order to break dormancy. Insufficient ‘chilling time’ leads to irregular ripening. It also results in lower yields and poorer fruit quality, including size, colour, and firmness. Del Campo also pointed out that if the winters are milder, it doesn’t mean there won’t be late frosts, which can cause even more damage.
