Spain's coolest summer in years: highs of 32°C, lows of 6°C

The summer you sleep covered up: 32°C highs and 6°C at dawn

According to several participants, this is the coolest summer in years. Highs of 32 degrees and lows of 16 force people to use blankets in Salamanca. Dawn temperatures of 6 degrees in El Espinar, Segovia. The dominant feeling is that of a classic, rather mild summer, with nights perfect for sleeping and afternoons where you can be outside without suffocating. The nuance is not small: this impression coexists with maps colored red by extreme heat warnings and headlines still talking about the hottest summer in 120,000 years. A balcony thermometer and a red alert on your phone do not tell the same story.

How many degrees is it really this summer?

The records shared these days, each from their own balcony and town, paint a map of contrasts rather than a single oven. In Castilla y León, they speak of a cool July; in Soria, some have seen people wearing thick jackets on the street; in Santiago de Compostela, it has rained, and quite a bit. In Salamanca, 16 degrees at night: in the village, people sleep with a blanket. In the heart of the Sierra de Gredos, those who slept outdoors estimated between 6 and 8 degrees.

The comparison with the previous year weighs heavily because memory is unreliable, but here there are dates. In Seville, this summer some see 25 degrees in the garden, whereas last July it was 34-36 degrees at those same hours. Nights that did not drop below 30 until one or two in the morning. The list of nighttime minimums being circulated says a lot:

• Salamanca: 16 degrees
• Ayllón area (Segovia): 8 degrees
• El Espinar (Segovia): 6 degrees
• Sierra de Gredos, bivouac: 6-8 degrees

The maximums do not justify catastrophe headlines either: 29 degrees at the time of writing, with 31 forecast for next week. A summer, say people from the north, worth avoiding.

Red alert with 17 degrees on the thermometer

Official warnings and domestic thermometers have been divorced for weeks. The most repeated case is the map painted bright red indicating that Conil would reach 25 degrees on July 28. With that same criterion, some recount that their computer issues a red alert for extreme heat while the station reads 17 degrees.

There is debate over whether reference stations are located correctly. Some argue that many records are cooked up on asphalt, rooftops, or parking lots, not in the shade and in the countryside. The counterargument also circulates: a balcony thermometer is not a measurement network, and cities concentrate the heat suffered by those living in them. Put another way, both data points can be true, and the discrepancy remains unresolved.

What changed from the 2022 summer to this one

If there is a year that explains the current feeling, it is the previous one. In July 2022, those working in Seville left home at 7:15 AM already feeling 24 degrees, and Seville broke the record for days above 40 degrees. Maximums were the usual, 40-42, but the nightmare was at night: very few dropped below 23 degrees. Sleeping was the problem.

This year, the situation has reversed in several places: it cools down almost every night, and scorching days are counted on fingers. Not everywhere, nor every day, and that is the detail that breaks any neat narrative. In inland Andalusia or Zaragoza, the label of mild summer holds up worse, and someone new to Seville in July gets the opposite impression to the lifelong neighbor, who sees these temperatures as the coolest summer in decades.

Wildfires: the data not refuted by a breeze

Temperature is debatable; burned surface area, less so. Data from the 2022 campaign circulating then showed more than 200,000 hectares devastated by mid-year, exceeding the previous year's maximum. The comparison with the current year is the strongest argument opponents of the pleasant summer narrative face: fewer fires, standing forest, less smoke on the horizon.

And yet, it does not close the matter. A benign fire season may be due to humidity, wind, or luck, not just mercury levels. Fire needs dry fuel, a spark, and air: the thermometer is just one variable in the equation, not the only one.

Can a cool July coexist with global warming?

It can, and that is precisely the part the typical headline skips. Global warming does not miccionan it will be hotter everywhere every day: it means the planet's average rises, which translates into more warm days in most places, occasional cold spells, and violent phenomena more frequently. More underlying drought and torrential rains when they arrive.

The skeptic has their own ammunition, and it is not as weak as it seems. Every summer is proclaimed the hottest in a series, decade, continent, or whatever fits, and averages change depending on what period they are compared against: the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman era, the Holocene maximum. Choosing the frame is part of the result. When the thermometer reads 32 degrees and the app announces extreme heat, the discussion ceases to be scientific and becomes one of trust.

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Three weeks of practical summer remain, and August is historically the month that breaks the statistics. With forecast maximums of 31 degrees and minimums dropping below 20 across much of Spain, the mild summer label lasts as long as it lasts. If an African ridge, a dry westerly wind, or that tropical night that doesn't drop below 26 appears, the narrative collapses in 48 hours, and we will all talk about hell again. Until then, people sleep covered up.