Sunbathers enjoy 23°C in Spain’s south as February turns unusually warm

MADRID – As Spain enjoyed temperatures above 20°C, forecasters warned the country had passed a second winter without a cold wave.

Spanish television showed bathers on the beach around Cadiz in the south of the country as temperatures reached 23°C in some parts.

AEMET, the Spanish state meteorological organisation, predicted temperatures above normal for Andalusia at the end of February.

Samuel Biener, a forecaster for Meteored, a forecasting company, said Spain had had two winters without cold waves but if this happened three years in a row it would be the first time since records began.

A cold wave is defined as a period of unusual weather marked by a sharp drop in air temperature near the surface over a large area for at least two consecutive days, according to the United Nations.

Spain has experienced heavy snow and cold temperatures through the winter months but has not had anything which forecasters consider a “cold wave”.

“What has happened during January and February as well as in the period 2023-24 is that we have not had a powerful [cold] wave which has reached Spain,” Biener told 20.minutos, an online newspaper.

“What we are seeing now is that the extremely low temperatures that were more frequent before are now more and more spaced out in time.”

Biener said the lack of a cold wave for the second year running could be because of climate change.

He said it was important not to confuse winter cold with cold waves, which last at least three consecutive days and cover at least 10 per cent of stations which record temperatures. Air temperatures must be 5 per cent below a series of average temperatures recorded between 1971 and 2000.

“What we have seen is that in recent years subtropical air masses are more common,” he said.

Biener said 2025 appeared to be the second year running without a cold wave but it is not unheard of in Spain. It happened between 1997 and 1998, 2000 and 2001 and also 2013 and 2014.

“We hope that this changes next year because if it does not it will be the first time since records began that we do not have cold waves in three years consecutively,” he added.

Biener said this February, temperatures were between 1°C and 3°C above the medium.

This could mean that this could become one of the hottest winters ever.