MADRID (Reuters) – Spain will suffer its first heat wave of the summer from Thursday, weather service AEMET said, as the government began an awareness campaign on Wednesday about the risk of heat for people who work. mainly outdoors.
After the Iberian Peninsula experienced cooler than normal weather this summer, AEMET expects temperatures to exceed 38 degrees Celsius in most of the country on Thursday, reaching up to 42-44 C in the south of the Guadalquivir. The peak of this episode will be on Friday, when most areas will warm up to 40°C.
AEMET has issued a heatwave warning for much of Spain, including the Balearic islands in the Mediterranean.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health launched the “When it’s sunny, it’s time to be careful” campaign on Wednesday to combat risks such as heatstroke and solar radiation.
AEMET’s orange-level severe heat warning for parts of the country will also trigger a ban on some afternoon outdoor work, under a government decree passed last year to deal with increasingly frequent heatwaves as a result of climate change caused by fossil fuels.
The measure affects outdoor work, such as street cleaning and agriculture.
“There are people who are highly affected by such high temperatures, exposure for many hours and lack of adequate hydration… so my main advice is not to underestimate them because the body is not prepared to withstand these conditions for a long time”, AEMET spokesman Luis Banon told Reuters.
The heat wave is expected to last until Saturday, although the heat may persist until the middle of next week and will be accompanied by fog from Africa, which often worsens health problems during heat episodes.
In Madrid, where thermometers registered 36ºC on Wednesday, people tried to cool off in parks and fountains.
“I can use a fan if I’m outside, and if I’m not, going to places like a shopping center or somewhere where it’s cooler,” Angela de la Vega, a retired Madrid resident, told Reuters.
(Reporting by Emma Pinedo, Catherine Macdonald, Guillermo Martinez and Michael Gore, editing by Andrei Khalip and Aurora Ellis)
