Spain braces for extreme heat: up to 44°C before Tuesday ends
Spain's national meteorological agency has issued orange alerts across much of the country for the summer's second heatwave, which began on Sunday, will intensify on Monday and could persist into Tuesday, with highs of 42–44°C in several regions.
The State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) issued a warning last Friday over the arrival of the second heatwave of the summer of 2026, a weather episode that begins this Sunday and will bring temperatures of up to 42°C in the south-western valleys of the Spanish mainland, lasting at least until Tuesday.
According to the agency’s own data, tomorrow Monday temperatures are expected to reach 38–40°C in the Miño valley and 37–39°C in inland A Coruña, while in the south-western quadrant maximums of 39–41°C will be widespread, rising to 42°C in river valleys, with temperatures of 37–40°C across the southern plateau, the Ebro valley and north-eastern low-lying areas.
Contrary to what might be assumed, the peak of the episode will not come on Tuesday. According to AEMET, Monday 6 will be the toughest day of the period, with further temperature increases on the eastern Cantabrian coast that will extend, to a lesser degree, to the Ebro valley, the northern plateau and the eastern third of the mainland, with values potentially reaching 44°C on Tuesday which would complicate the Bisbal d'Empordá wildfire, while in western Galicia the arrival of a maritime air flow will start to be felt, bringing temperatures down along the coast.
On Wednesday, with greater uncertainty due to the possible influence of a cut-off low (dana), the most likely scenario points to values remaining above 39–40°C in the south-west, the southern plateau, the Ebro valley and parts of the south-eastern interior, before temperatures begin to fall from Thursday onwards.
Where the risk is concentrated: from southern Spain to the Canary Islands
The most intense focus remains Andalusia. On Saturday AEMET activated an orange heatwave alert in Seville, Huelva and Jaén, and a yellow alert in Cádiz and Granada, with temperatures that could reach 40 degrees in several areas, while Almería was for the moment outside these warnings. On top of this, the Cádiz coastline is under a yellow warning for strong easterly winds, forcing extra caution in the Strait of Gibraltar.
The agency’s special advisory outlines a wide-ranging map: the south-western quadrant of the mainland, the Guadiana and Guadalquivir valleys, the Ebro valley and the north-eastern depressions concentrate the highest risk, although the phenomenon also affects inland Galicia, the southern plateau, the eastern Cantabrian area and the Balearic Islands, where maximums of between 36°C and 38°C are expected in Mallorca.
The Canary Islands, which are often spared the worst of mainland heat episodes, are not exempt this time. The Directorate General for Emergencies of the Canary Islands government has declared an alert for wildfire risk on Gran Canaria and Tenerife from this Sunday, in view of a spell of high temperatures that will last several days, and by Tuesday the entire eastern province will move to an orange warning, while the rest of the islands will remain under yellow alert.
Across the country there is still no definitive count of provinces by warning level for the three-day period, because AEMET’s map is updated dynamically as the models evolve; what has been confirmed so far is an orange alert in the south-west of the mainland, the Ebro valley and the eastern Canary Islands, and a yellow alert in a broader belt surrounding those areas.
Health, fires and the backdrop of a summer already defined by heat
This is not the first heatwave of the summer, and the impact of the previous ones weighs heavily in the debate on the current risk. Barely a few days after the first heatwave, which is estimated to have caused nearly 900 deaths during June according to the Ministry of Health’s MoMo monitoring system, began to subside, AEMET was already warning of the arrival of this second episode.
For the phenomenon to be formally classified as a heatwave, it must exceed the 95th percentile of temperatures by an extreme margin, last at least three days and affect more than 10% of the territory, three conditions that current projections consider very likely to be met.
The risk is not confined to daylight hours. Minimum temperatures will hover around 20–26°C in the coming days, with peaks of 27–28°C, translating into tropical nights for much of the country and making it harder to sleep in the most affected areas, a factor that public health specialists regard as just as significant as the peak daytime maximums. Added to this is the wildfire threat: in Andalusia the INFOCA Plan remains in its pre-alert phase, and in the Canary Islands the declaration of wildfire risk already accompanies the heat warning.
The usual recommendations in the face of these very high temperatures:
- Avoid exposure to the sun during the hottest hours of the day.
- Maintain frequent hydration.
- Do not engage in intense physical exercise outdoors.
- Pay special attention to older people, children and those with chronic illnesses; these recommendations become even more important in an episode that is expected to be long-lasting and with nights offering little rest. It is also advisable to consult the updated warnings on aemet.es (source in Spanish), as forecasts for Tuesday and Wednesday still carry a degree of uncertainty.
