Weather and Climate of Spain

Spain’s climate is determined by its unusual world position, on the south western edge of Eurasia and just 13.4 kilometres from Africa at its narrowest point, with an ocean to the west and a sea to the east, and by its continental land mass and high mountainous terrain, producing a mosaic of climates, the most varied in Europe. Weather presenters here often have a lot to fit into their two minutes.

Mainland Spain can be divided into six climatic zones:

Oceanic climate of northern coast: Average temperatures here are 9ºC in winter and 18ºC in summer. This is the wettest part of the peninsula with annual rainfall between 800-1500mm, brought by successive depressions from the Atlantic, particularly in autumn and winter. Although summers are cooler and wetter here than the rest of Spain, there is a marked summer drought and plenty of warm, sunny weather.

Mountain: Extremes of temperature with irregular rainfall patterns.

Continental Mediterranean climate of interior central plateau: Low temperatures in winter, with temperatures under -15ºC not uncommon, and under -20ºC regularly occurring. Summer is an average 24ºC. Annual rainfall under 400mm with heavy snowfalls in winter. As the Castilians say " nueve meses de invierno y tres meses de infierno." (nine months of winter and three months of hell).

Mediterranean climate proper: Eastern and southern coast and much of the Guadalquivir Valley. Average temperatures of 11ºC in winter and 23ºC in summer. Annual rainfall is between 250mm and 600mm.

Dry Mediterranean: Dry, temperate winters and hot summers.

Subtropical climate: Canary Islands. Average winter temperatures above 14ºC. Average summer temperatures around 22ºC. Varied rainfall figures.

Temperatures in Spain

Hours of sunshine vary in Spain from 1,700 on the Cantabrian coast up to more than 3,000 in the South and the Canaries.

The official record of the lowest temperature in Spain is at Estany Gento in Lerida with -32ºC in 1956.

There are a number of official figures in Spain of around 47ºC, including at Écija , also known as the 'sartén or frying pan of Andalucia' in the province of Seville.

The sun in the northernmost reaches of Spain reaches a height of 69.5 on the horizon on the summer solstice. In Tarifa, Spain’s southernmost point, it reaches 77.5. On the winter solstice it’s 22.5 and 30.5, respectively. This means, clouds apart, a significant difference in sun received. Bilbao airport receives 1,525 hours, Costa de La Luz from Huelva to Cadiz around 3000 hours.

There exists a difference in temperature of some 22ºC between the freezing peaks of the Sierra Nevada at 3,478m, and the semi-tropical Granada coast just 40km apart. Thus, while the average temperature of much of the Mediterranean coast is some 15ºC, temperatures above 2500m are below freezing.

The coldest stretch of coast in the winter is in Guipúzcoa with an average of 8ºC. The warmest is the coast of most of Andalusia with 13ºC.

The valleys of the Sistema Ibérica suffer the highest numbers of frost days during the year, with places such as Calamocha and Molina de Aragón having an average of 120. Similarly, Reinosa in the Cordillera Cantábrica at 950m above sea level has an average of 90 days of frost.

On peaks above 2,500m in the Pyrenees, Picos de Europa, Sistema Central and Ibérico and Sierra Nevada it snows between 90 and 120 days a year. In the Ibérico and Sierra Nevada ranges, snow is often present October to June in the highest and shadiest spots, though it only remains all the year round in the glaciers of the Pyrenees.

Rain in Spain

Large areas of Spain receive an average of around 600mm of rain a year. The average altitude of the country is 660m.

Almeria is, in all probability, the most arid region in Europe. The Cabo de Gata area, Europe’s only semi-desert, receives barely 125-150mm of rain a year.

Average yearly rainfall varies hugely. The two extremes are: 1,955mm in 1855, and just 356mm in 1981, with an average variation of 20% from one year to the next. This rises to as much as 40% in places like the Mar Menor in Murcia.

In Mediterranean Spain, rainfall tends to be concentrated into just a few days, and even then it is sometimes limited to a few hours. Figures of 100mm are common, with 250mm not being exceptional. The absolute record is a remarkable 817mm in Oliva (Valencia) on 3 November 1987, followed by 600mm in Albuñol (Granada) on 19 October 1973 and 426mm in Cofrentes (also Valencia) on 20 October 1987. An extreme is in the village of Manuel in Valencia where 119mm fell in one hour on 1 July 2003.

Interannual precipitation (rainfall, snow, hail, etc) varies hugely. In 1996 it rained twice as much as it did in 1990 in most areas. So beware of making predictions on climate change solely because it hasn’t rained much in a given year.

Oddly, one of the wettest villages in Spain is not on the Atlantic coast but in Andalucia. Grazalema in the Sierra de Grazalema has an average of 2,153 mm of rain a year. The warm, humid winds blow in from the Atlantic and cool and condense as they pass over these limestone peaks. The wettest points are certainly on the Galician/Portuguese border and parts of Northern Navarra.