With only two months to go until long-awaited summer, something very odd is going on with Portugal’s temperatures: we have some days ahead of us promising unusually hot weather, and then – bang, a return to ‘polar cold’.
The news has been explained by IPMA meteorologist Duarte Costa, who admits, “it’s an anomaly”.
“We’re going to have a gradual increase in temperatures over the coming days. In some parts of the country, particularly in the interior regions, furthest from the sea, temperatures will be similar to those of the summer – even reaching 30ºC.”
This, in itself, is ‘unusual’ for April – and also unlikely to last for very long. The rest of Europe is being assailed by cold temperatures, and these will eventually reach the balmy shores of Portugal. When? Duarte Costa hasn’t given a clear indication: Weather maps show “a bubble of cold air approaching” from the Atlantic, as well as “the cold air that will descend from Europe, and bring polar temperatures”.
In other words, enjoy this gathering sunshine, but don’t pack away your jumpers.
Costa puts the strange state of affairs this way: ““The North Pole is consistently warmer than normal. If I were to say to you, ‘your freezer, which is supposed to be cold, is 20°C warmer than it should be’, that would be a cause for concern. Our Arctic, our freezer, isn’t working properly, because there is heat everywhere. Heat is being released into the Pacific because we are entering an El Niño season very quickly – we’ve gone from La Niña to El Niño – there is heat in the oceans and this heat means that the difference between where it’s supposed to be hot and where it’s supposed to be cold is smaller.”
Nature, like the global geopolitical situation, is confused – and the consequences of these structural changes in the climate will continue to take their toll on people’s lives and, in the final analysis, on their states of health.
Source material: LUSA
