This summer will be one of the hottest in the last 60 years in the Canary Islands

Quintero offered this information, “with all precautions”in the course of a press conference with the sub-delegate of the Government in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Javier Plata, to talk, among other things, about the seasonal advance for the remainder of June, July and August.

The predictions contemplate that the temperature values ​​will be higher than normal in the remainder of June and early July, according to this spokesman for the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet). In some places of the Archipelago it is also contemplated that the rainfall is higher than usual for this time of year. In any case, Quintero indicated that it does not have to rain a lot for that parameter to be reached. This forecast of a hotter than normal summer continues the warmest spring that has been recorded in the Archipelago in the last 62 years, Quintero explained.

The director of the Meteorological Center described the average temperature on the islands during the months of March, April and May this year as extremely warm or very warm in both provinces. The average temperature has been 18.6 degrees in the spring that is now ending, with a very high anomaly of 1.9 degrees. And the behavior “has been exactly the same in both provinces,” according to Quintero.

Anomaly

In the case of the islands of Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, the average temperature was 19.9 degrees Celsius, with an anomaly of 1.8. And in Tenerife, The Palm, La Gomera and The ironthe average temperature was 17.1 degrees, with an even greater anomaly than in the eastern province. The anomaly is the variation between the average temperature of the historical series of what it has done in a certain month or quarter in a specific area.

In March, April and May, all areas have had high temperatures, above their average values ​​for that time, said the Aemet representative. In some enclaves temperatures of two or three degrees higher than usual have been reached, such as the central midlands of Gran Canaria and other inland points of other islands of the Community. On the opposite side, the coolest area, where warm temperatures have been reached, is part of the north of Tenerife, indicated Víctor Quintero.

Of the three months of the spring just ending, March was the warmest of all. For this reason, on the Aemet map, the islands appear in red (extremely warm) or orange (very warm) colours. In this case, heat average temperature was 18.9 degrees Celsiuswith an anomaly of between two and three degrees in the low areas of some islands and four degrees in high areas.

In the case of April, the average temperature throughout the Archipelago was 18.4 degrees, with a difference from the historical average of between one and three degrees. And May was the least warm. In fact, in peaks and midlands the temperatures have been almost the usual for this time of year.

The phenomena that are related to the high spring temperatures are the zonal configuration of the anticyclone to the south or southwest of the Azores; by a low pressure system in northwest Africa, as well as by a DANA in the south and southwest of the Canary Islands.

March 30 was the hottest day of that month since 1961., because never before since there are records had it reached 30 degrees Celsius. And this month of June, at least in the first ten days, it is also being warmer than usual, said the director of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife Meteorological Center.

In the analysis of the historical series, it can be seen that at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s there was a decrease in the average temperatures corresponding to the springs, but, since then, there has been a progressive increase in them.

At the same time, the months of March, April and May of 2023 were also among the driest in the historical series and have only been surpassed by the average values ​​of 1961. The average precipitation has stood at 11 liters per square meter, which which represents 21% of the normal or expected precipitation for the aforementioned quarter; that is, it has rained 79% less than expected in that period.

And in the areas most favored by this phenomenon, not even 50% of what is considered usual was reached based on the historical statistical data handled by the State Meteorological Agency with respect to the last decades.

And in a context of low rainfall, the area of ​​the Anaga rural park, a Unesco Biosphere Reserve, stands out, where there is usually a high level of rainfall and where this spring it has not been abundant.