THIS autumn will be 'much warmer and drier than usual' with temperatures above average for the time of year, especially in the north-east of mainland Spain, says a leading weather expert.
José Antonio Maldonado, head of the network Meteored, says the south-west of the country, particularly Extremadura and the Guadalquivir valley, will see 'normal' autumn temperatures, but Catalunya, Navarra and Aragón will be warmer.
The rest of the mainland and Balearic Islands will see temperatures 'slightly higher than average', but which will not be as notable as in the north.
Also, after the recent August storms, the likelihood of a gota fría – a sudden dip in temperatures which accompanies monsoon-like conditions for several days at a time – is very remote, even though autumn is usually the season for these.
The north-west will be wetter than the rest of the country, particularly Galicia, Asturias and northern Castilla y León, but generally, rainfall nationwide will be very low.
Until around four years ago, August was always dry, hot and humid, but early October on the Mediterranean and autumn as a whole in the rest of the country would bring, if not an actual gota fría, torrential rain and flash floods; now, the monsoons seem to have moved to August and rain is almost non-existent in autumn.
Maldonado says 'no gota fría formations have been observed' ahead of autumn – which starts officially on September 21 – but that 'the potential risk is always there', although he does not consider it likely that any seasonal storms will be 'catastrophic'.
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