46ºC in the Shade: What Color Should the Heatwave Be?

What tonalidad is a country painted at 46ºC in the shade?

What tonalidad is a country painted when half of Spain has spent a week above 45 degrees Celsius in the shade? The weather maps have chosen red. And that's where the dispute comes from. Some argue that this red is an exaggeration; others respond that at 46ºC, you can't look for green just because green is calming.

The controversy has become intertwined with politics: some messages attribute the complaints about the red tonalidad to certain circles, while others reply that heat doesn't admit chromatic nuances. In between, there are phone screenshots and garden thermometers. This isn't a new struggle: every summer, the same tension repeats between those who ask for less drama on the maps and those who respond that the problem isn't the tonalidad, but the temperature.

The Heatwave Figures: A Week Above 45ºC

The numbers are hard to dispute: half the country has been above 45 degrees in the shade since Tuesday, a streak stretching for a full week. Some nights, temperatures don't drop below 35ºC. In Murcia, 46ºC has been recorded. Critics of climate denialism emphasize that these readings put Spain on par with the interior of the Sahara and the Persian Gulf. In this view, the maps have merely translated the thermometer readings into tonalidad.

Conversely, the opposing argument doesn't dispute the thermometer, but the scale. This is an important nuance: almost no one denies it's hot. What's questioned is whether the graphical representation of that heat is biased.

Why Do Weather Maps Use So Many Shades of Red?

Herein lies the crux. The most frequent criticism is that the scale has been compressed: according to this theory, the green range between yellow and blue has been eliminated, so now there's yellow at 10ºC and red for burning at 30ºC. The result is that any August afternoon appears as a catastrophe, and viewers stop distinguishing between a hot day and a dangerous day.

The defense of red is equally simple. If the map covers half the peninsula in red, it's not the pueblerino's fault: it's because the heat is record-breaking. Changing the tonalidad doesn't lower the temperature. And there's an uncomfortable corollary: with any honest scale, the map would be just as red, because the values to be represented are all high. Although the opposite is also possible, which is precisely what's being debated.

The Alternative Proposal: Bring Green Back to the Scale

The controversy has led to concrete proposals, some with technical merit. One of the most detailed suggests repositioning the ranges: 18 degrees in dark green, the lightest green at 24, and then starting to turn yellow. Another advocates for using white at 0ºC and reserving the entire blue spectrum for negative values, something that would be almost decorative in Spain.

The full breakdown, with ranges, thresholds, and a hand-drawn alternative scale, is the kind of material that doesn't fit in a paragraph.

The Home Thermometer Doesn't Match the App

One of the most repeated episodes isn't about colors, but about distrust. A circulating case: the mobile app showed 43ºC while the garden thermometer, connected to the official network, registered 36.7ºC. For some, proof that the figures are inflated; for others, proof that a poorly placed home sensor isn't a valid reference.

Beneath the disagreement lies a methodological question that is rarely made explicit: where, how, and at what height is the measurement taken, and why can two devices show differences of several degrees without either being wrong.

Is it Normal to Reach 45ºC in August in Spain?

This is the underlying question. One current of thought defends that 45 degrees in the dry plains of the Meseta and the south have been common since ancient times and that the phenomenon even has a name: canícula (dog days), the hottest period of summer. From this perspective, the summer is within predictable limits and the alarm is a response to a self-serving narrative. The objection is twofold: one thing is the August peak, and another is the persistence, and there are readings that rival desert areas.

The core issue is a clash of frameworks. One side argues that temperatures have been contained since August 19th, that the first 18 days were hell, and that July was unusually cool in large parts of the country. The other side recalls that ten consecutive days without dropping below 45 degrees are not just any dog days.

And so, we reach an impasse. The records are there; the fight over tonalidad is, in reality, a fight over what is considered normal.

With these figures, logically, no one should be arguing about a tonalidad pueblerino. We continue to argue. I suppose it's easier to choose a shade than to choose a thermometer.