The State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) forecasts that the autumn months will be warm with normal rainfall in the Balearics. According to the Aemet representative in the Balearics, María José Guerrero, at a press conference held on Thursday to summarise the summer has been the third hottest in the last 64 years. The change of season will officially begin on 22 September and will last for almost 90 days, until the end of December, when it will give way to winter.
Guerrero pointed out that September, October and November will be warm and that no clear trend in rainfall has been observed, so they have interpreted that it will rain ‘normally’, i.e. around 230 litres per square metre (l/m2). The quarter between October and December will also be warm, around 1 degree Celsius (ºC) above the normal 15ºC, and rainfall is also expected to remain above the annual average.
The trend in average temperatures will decline from 19ºC in October to 12ºC in December, passing through 14ºC in November. Between November and January, temperatures are expected to remain warm, between 0.5ºC and 1ºC above average. Guerrero pointed out, the trend will be for temperatures to continue to fall throughout the autumn, a season that could be divided into two parts.
The first, characterised by sunny days and some clouds, potentially torrential rains, storms and possible tornadoes or “caps de fibló”. The second, by cloudy days, widespread rainfall and some frost and snowfall in the mountains of Mallorca during the month of November. Guerrero pointed out that this summer has been the hottest since 1961, with an average temperature of 25.9ºC and an anomaly of 1.9ºC. There have been two heatwaves in Mallorca, with highs of 41.5ºC, and one in Ibiza, where temperatures reached 41.4ºC.
The Palma-Porto Pi and Porreres stations recorded the highest average temperatures since records began, with 28ºC (since 1978) and 27.1ºC (since 1991), respectively. All the summer months, in any case, were ‘warmer than normal,’ said the Aemet representative. June was ‘extremely warm,’ with anomalies of up to 3.3ºC, on all the islands except Formentera, where it was ‘warm.’
‘We thought that if this trend continued, we would not make it to September. It continued to be hot, but at the end of July and beginning of August, temperatures dropped,’ she said. July and August were ‘very warm’ months throughout the Balearics. In addition, there has been a general increase in tropical nights (minimum temperatures above 20ºC) across all the islands, with a 126% increase at Palma airport and an 86% increase in Calvia, for example. The number of hot nights (minimum temperatures above 25ºC) also increased across all the islands.
In terms of rainfall, the summer was normal, with rainfall 18% below the usual values, i.e. from 40 l/m² to 33 l/m². By island, Mallorca and Ibiza had normal rainfall, while the Pitiusas were dry. In general terms, while June was very dry (0.1 compared to 15 l/m²), July was very rainy (19.4 compared to 5 l/m²) and August was slightly dry (14 compared to 20 l/m²). The first ten days of September, meanwhile, were slightly wet in Mallorca and Menorca and dry in the Pitiusas. These days of rain and storms left 51 l/m² in Son Servera, 26 l/m² in Ciutadella, 5.8 l/m² in Ibiza and 6 l/m² in Formentera.
Guerrero stated that the predictions made by the Aemet point to an increase in intense rainfall compared to a decrease in weaker or moderate rainfall. In other words, extreme phenomena are expected to increase, although she admitted that it is difficult to predict when and where due to the fact that it is a global and not a local phenomenon.