Orange alert to remain in place until 6pm tomorrow
Around 50 municipalities in eight districts in Portugal are at maximum risk of wildfires today due to blistering temperatures, while IPMA, the country’s meteorological office, has issued an orange warning for all 18 mainland districts until 6 pm tomorrow.
Around 50 municipalities in the districts of Faro (Algarve), Portalegre, Castelo Branco, Viseu, Santarém, Bragança, Vila Real and Guarda are at maximum danger of wildfires.
The highest maximum temperatures forecast today are 41ºC, for Évora, Beja and Santarém, with Braga, Castelo Branco and Portalegre a degree behind.
The district of Vila Real is seen with a maximum temperature of 39ºC, Bragança 38ºC, Viseu, Coimbra and Lisbon 37ºC and Faro (most regions of the Algarve) 36ºC.
These forecasts are averages for each district. In the western Algarve, for example, the temperatures today are more in the low 30ºCs than high.
A degree here or there however makes little difference when it comes to fire risks: several municipalities in all mainland districts are on “very high” and “high” risk for wildfires.
According to IPMA’s calculations, this increased danger of wildfires will remain high in some districts until “at least Saturday“.
Wildfire risk, determined by IPMA, has five levels, ranging from low to maximum. Calculations are based on air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and the amount of precipitation in the last 24 hours.
The 18 mainland districts will go from orange warning tomorrow at 6pm back to yellow.
The archipelago of Madeira is also under a yellow weather warning until 6 pm tomorrow.
An orange warning is issued by IPMA whenever there is a “meteorological situation of moderate to high risk”; a yellow warning when there is a risk situation for certain activities dependent on the meteorological situation.
For today, IPMA forecasts “continued hot weather on the mainland with slightly cloudy or clear skies, a weak wind, blowing weak to moderate, a rise in the minimum temperature and a small rise in the maximums in the interior of the northern and central regions, and in the Algarve”.
Minimum temperatures are seen oscillating between 17 degrees (in Aveiro) and 26 (in Portalegre) and maximum temperatures between 28 (in Aveiro) and 41 (in Évora, Beja and Santarém).
The Madeiran archipelago is forecast to have “slightly cloudy or clear skies, with periods of greater cloudiness until early morning, a weak to moderate wind and a slight rise in the maximum temperature in the highlands”.
In Funchal, temperatures will vary between 22ºC and 27ºC degrees and in Porto Santo between 21ºC and 26ºC degrees.
The Azores is not under any kind of ‘hot weather’ warning. Temperatures there rarely exceed 28ºC, and today are hovering around a very bearable 26ºC.
Source: LUSA
