The first hot nights arrive in Barcelona later this year

Barcelona and Catalonia are plunged into a cycle of high temperatures that will continue until Saturday. The temperature rose during the day and also during Night hours. In fact, the first one The hot season night has already arrived in the center of Barcelona.At the Raval station of the Catalan Meteorological Office it reached 25.4 degrees and did not fall below 25.7 degrees in Les Drassanes or 25 degrees in Vila Olímpica at stations operated by Aemet.

It is being talked about. A hot night when the minimum temperature at night and in the morning is not less than 25 degrees. High temperatures at night, if associated with a lot of environmental humidity and little wind (common in Barcelona and on the coast) means that It’s really hard to fall asleep.

According to the forecast of rising temperatures at night, Barcelona City Council has already activated the alert phase of the calorie plan for hot nights.The warning will be as stated by the Council. Activate the next few nights in case this situation persists.at least until Sunday.

This year, the warm minimums will arrive later than in recent years in Barcelona.

Meteorological Observatory of Can BruixaLocated in the Cortes region, it is a good reference point when analyzing temperature evolution over the years. It is also an observatory with a long series of continuous records stretching back 37 years.

At least 25.2 degrees has already been recorded this Friday. At this station The first warm minimum of 2024 arrived relatively few days after 2023. (July 11) but long after 2022 and 2021 (June 15 and 13 respectively).

Interior of Barcelona It is one of the points in Catalonia where night temperatures are highest throughout the year. The heat island effect largely explains this thermal anomaly: during the day the concrete, asphalt and building facades heat up and this heat is released slowly during the night hours. This fact makes it difficult for the night temperature to drop easily and records minimum values ​​that are clearly higher than in the more open areas on the outskirts of the city.

Hot nights come early and more frequently.

If we analyze Date of arrival of the first extremely hot minimum temperature in Can Bruixa (Recorded between 0 and 23.59 hours), We can see that progress has been made over time.

If at the end of the decade of 80 litersIt’s the first hot nights It appeared on average around day 205 (around July 23 or 24), They currently do this about 20 days ago.during the first week of July.

next to, The number of hot nights, like the number of tropical nights, has also increased over the decades in central Barcelona.The data for the summer of 2022 are particularly noteworthy: 132 tropical minimum temperatures (>20°C), including 46 extremely hot temperatures (>25°C).

It should be taken into account that over the past two years we have had an unusually hot summer. The summer of 2023 was the third warmest summer ever recorded at the Fabra Observatory.with an average temperature (June-July-August) of 25°C. It has placed itself behind Summer 2022, second warmest With an average of 26.2 degrees Celsius. The summer of 2003 was the warmest on record at the Fabra Observatory.With an average of 26.7°C. The average for the period 1991-2023 is 23.4°C.

Hot nights also reach the Fabra Observatory.

Fabra ObservatoryIt is located at an altitude of 413 meters and is far from the urban fabric of Barcelona, ​​and is not affected by the heat island effect. At this point in Barcelona the minimum temperature is usually lower than in the inner areas of the city.

However, the data from this observatory are in line with those from Can Bruixa: there are more and more high minimums, especially tropical minimums. The last few years have also seen more hot nights at this high point of the city.