August, the hottest month of the year in Spain. As it does every month, AEMET (the Spanish State Meteorological Agency) publishes on its website the most significant temperatures for these four weeks, which were warmer than normal overall. In fact, the average temperature was 25,2ºC , 1,3ºC above the average.
But what is most striking is undoubtedly how little rain there has been. The average rainfall was only 8 mm , while the normal average is 23 mm. Let's see what August 2016 was like in Spain.
August 2016 temperatures
Image - AEMET
As you can see in the image above, temperatures were warm or very warm across almost the entire country , except in the east of the peninsula and the Balearic Islands. Galicia, Castile and León, Extremadura, Madrid, the western half of Castile-La Mancha, western and central Andalusia, and even some areas of the Pyrenees saw a temperature anomaly of 2°C. In many places, especially in mountainous regions, the anomaly reached 3°C. In the rest of the peninsula, the anomaly was around 1°C, except in inland Murcia, where it was -1°C.
In the Balearic Islands as a whole it was a cold month, with an anomaly of negative 1ºC, while in the Canary Islands it was very warm, with anomalies close to 2ºC.
August 2016 rainfall
Image - AEMET
August is usually a very dry month, but August 2016 was extremely dry . With an average rainfall of only 8 mm, it didn't even reach 25% of normal values ​​in many parts of the country, such as the Ebro Valley, some areas of Cantabria, parts of the Mediterranean coast, the Canary Islands, and the eastern Balearic Islands. The only areas where rainfall exceeded normal values ​​were the central part of the Valencian Community, where it surpassed normal values ​​by 75%, Cuenca, Albacete, Granada, AlmerÃa, and eastern Girona.
This was a month that we will probably have again in the coming years as the planet's temperature increases.