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We might have had a dusting of snow on the mountains over the past few weeks and, in recent days, more than enough rain, but the experts believe it’s “highly probable” that 2025 will bid farewell with “extremely warm” weather. In fact, Aemet predicts the end of the year will be one of the warmest winter spells Spain has ever seen.

 

That’s right: no white Christmas for Spain.

 

If the forecasts pan out, Spain would be looking at four consecutive warn years, and “based on the data we have, 2025 will probably be the third or fourth in the series,” Aemet spokesperson Rubén del Campo explained.

 

The State Meteorological Agency estimates that 2025, which already has 25 days of record heat, may end with an average temperature above 15ºC for the country as a whole. However, it’s also been a very wet year: 633mm of rain has fallen up to December 9, which is 8% higher than the norm.

 

Aemet has also indicated that in the quarter between December and February, corresponding to meteorological winter, temperatures above average are forecast, with a 60% probability of mainland Spain being hotter than usual and 70% on the islands.

 

The rainfall predictions are a little harder to pin down though. In the southwest of the country, there is a 40% probability of a drier-than-normal winter, compared to a 25% probability of a wetter one. In the rest of Spain, no clear trend has really emerged.

 

If the timeframe is extended to the first quarter of 2026, from January to March, warmer than normal temperatures are also expected, especially in the northwest and the archipelagos.

 

 

For its part, the autumn of 2025, which meteorologically spans from September 1 to November 30, has been very warm and dry, with an average temperature of 15.4ºC, one degree above the average of the reference period 1991-2020.

 

It was, in fact, the ninth warmest autumn on record and the eighth warmest this century.

 

By month, September was 0.6ºC above average, October 2.1ºC (the sixth warmest October on record), and November 0.3ºC.

 

The highest temperatures among the main weather stations were recorded at Gran Canaria Airport, which hit 39.9°C on September 19 and at Granada Airport and Córdoba Airport, soaring to 39.1°C on September 17 and 18, respectively.

 

Despite the recent rains, autumn has been dry, with an average rainfall over peninsular Spain of 166.3 mm, 83% of the normal value in the reference period 1991-2020.

 

Only the western coast and southern Galicia, southwestern Castilla y León, southern Catalonia, the Valencian Community and western Andalucia experienced wet conditions.

 

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Image: Archive