Spain holidays 2024: Warning as popular holiday destination will be 'hotter than normal' this summer with record temperatures and heatwaves

This summer is expected to be “hotter than normal” in popular holiday destination Spain with it very likely that the country will experience heatwaves. Spain’s State Meteorological Agency, AEMET, told NationalWorld that this summer is “expected to be drier than usual” and “very hot”.

The warning comes as Spain has been battling a historic drought since the start of the year caused by a lack of rainfall. Many regions in Spain have introduced emergency measures due to the drought for example the government in Catalonia introduced a ban on refilling pools or topping them up unless recycled water is used.  Authorities in Costa del Sol also cut off water supplies for half the day on Thursday 11 April due to the “prolonged drought with a severe shortage of water resources”.

Experts have already told NationalWorld that holidaying in Spain is likely to change in the future, as well as this summer, as droughts will “not be one-off events” and will bring in new measures.

Sheela Agarwal, professor of tourism management at University of Plymouth, said that it is “difficult to predict exactly how droughts will change holidaying in Spain this summer as it all depends on how such water scarcity is managed and the types of strategies that are implemented to mitigate its impact” but “restrictions on daily water consumption may act to put tourists off from visiting Spain”.

Now, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, this summer “will be hotter than normal in Spain” which means that it is very likely the droughts will hit the country this summer.

The Service adds: “The probability that it will be hotter than normal in Spain is very high (more than 70%) throughout the country and the rest of southern Europe. There is even a high probability (between 50 and 70%) that the summer of 2024 will be very hot, that is, that its temperature will be in the range of the 20% hottest recorded in Spain.”

“Then we will likely have to face heat waves. Summers in Spain often suffer from a lack of rain, but next summer is expected to be drier than usual.”