From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Ian Cunningham

The BBC is still playing the heatwave/climate card!

Firefighters in Portugal are battling to contain wildfires engulfing thousands of hectares amid soaring temperatures.

Around 800 personnel attended a fire near the southern town of Odemira overnight on Monday, with more than 1,400 people having to evacuate.

At least nine firefighters have been injured tackling the fires.

Temperatures in excess of 40C (104F) are expected to hit much of the Iberian peninsula this week.

Three major fires that scorched hundreds of hectares in Spain over the weekend have been brought under control, but weather alerts remain in place across much of the country.

In Portugal, Monday saw a temperature of 46.4C (116F), the hottest of the year so far, recorded in Santarém.

The fire near Odemira began on Saturday and was driven south into the hilly interior of the Algarve, Portugal’s main tourism region, by strong winds.

It has so far destroyed some 6,700 hectares (16,600 acres) of land, while a total of 19 villages, four tourist accommodations and a camping site have been evacuated.

The town’s mayor, Helder Guerreiro, has said the situation is “critical, difficult, and complex”.

In Spain, fires near the south-western coastal cities of Cadiz and Huelva and in the northern Catalonia region scorched more than 1,000 hectares (2,470 acres) in total on Saturday and Sunday.

This week’s heatwave will mark the third to hit the Iberian peninsula this summer.

Ruben del Campo of Spain’s State Meteorological Agency told Reuters it was being caused by a large mass of hot, dry air from North Africa and would be “generally more intense, more widespread and a little longer-lasting” than the two that hit in July.

Climate change increases the risk of the hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires.

The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66435160

The BBC would like you to believe that hot weather is somehow unusual in Spain and Portugal!

And as usual they provide no context at all. The big fire currently near Odemira has so far burnt 6700 ha, but this is a tiny figure compared to the annual wildfire area in Portugal each year. And the data clearly shows there is no upward trend.

https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/daviz/burnt-forest-area-in-five-4/#tab-googlechartid_chart_51

https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-updates/eu-2022-wildfire-season-was-second-worst-record-2023-05-02_en#:~:text=Romania%20%2816%202518%20ha%29%2C%20Portugal%20%2811%202063%20ha%29%2C,among%20the%20five%20countries%20that%20were%20most%20affected.

As for temperatures of 40C this week, what is so unusual about that?

Cadiz, for instance, which is mentioned in the article, hit 39C on Sunday, and the forecast is for much cooler weather:

https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/spain/cadiz/ext

But temperatures of 39C in Cadiz are certainly not unheard of:

https://www.ecad.eu/indicesextremes/customquerytimeseriesplots.php

In short the BBC is catastrophising ordinary summer weather in the Med.

FOOTNOTE

I happened to hear a short clip from Lorraine this morning, which seemed to even blame the sunbed wars on the “heatwave”!

And the wet bloke reporting from the Costa del Sol was nearly in tears as he talked of holidays being spelt by this and wildfires, (even though the fires were miles away up in the mountains).