Iberian spring on the way

[maritimesbob]

I am sure folks in Spain and Portugal are sick of seeing the miserable rain and winds, fortunately some relief is on the way.

On Sunday, a 500hpa ridge begins to push in from the southwest. It's a transient feature as you would expect in February, meaning it won't be sticking around. But as geopotential heights increase on Monday, temperatures along the southern regions of Iberia will respond favourably with some locations reaching the low 20s celcius. Most of the week remains settled and enjoying some spring warmth and some of the early warmth will push into central Iberia by midweek.

I think the hotspots are likely eastern most Spain. Potentially 26 or 27c could be reached for Murcia by the end of the week.

The ridge repositions by the end of the week and cooler temperatures push in by the weekend, but it remain DRY!

I've attached the 500hpa heights, showing higher pressure over most of Iberia on Thursday.

Enjoy the sunshine next week!

 

[wxmanjerry]

Also worth mentioning, this time of year the sun is beginning to find some strength. I noticed UV levels will increase quite a bit for southern and eastern Spain maybe hitting the high 6 range. First location in mainland Europe to reach this level.

 

[chaser_tyler]

It's going to be the perfect run of temperatures, low twenties for my neighborhood and most importantly no rain for the next 10 day period. The GFS meteogram for Alicante shows 26 on Tuesday. First taste of spring!

 

[chaser_tyler]

Looks like we might see out the remainder of this month with positive height anomalies. Very little precipitation in the forecast and generally, early spring-like temperatures with some up and downs on the maxes and mins.

 

[wxmanjerry]

Nice spread of temperatures for eastern-most Spain for the 7-10 day period. Nights could be a bit cool later this week, but the temperatures will recover quickly in the strengthening sun.

 

[maritimesbob]

Temperatures climbed well in southeastern Spain. Murcia reached 26.9c today, but it was widely 25c in southeast Spain / Alicante area. Quite a difference as you can see in the attached temperature map where temperatures in northern Tunisia only hit the low to mid teens!

 

[maritimesbob]

One more week of the spring-like weather, but as we enter March there is potential for positive heights to drop away with some unsettled weather back on the scene, temperatures dropping away to average or slightly below. We're not heading back the Atlantic storms of late January and early February however.