America is preparing for the great astronomical phenomenon of 2024: the total solar eclipse that on April 8 will be visible in a wide area of the continent, from Mexico to Canada, crossing the United States from the southwest to the northeast. The corridor of total darkness of the eclipse will cross cities as large as Dallas, Cleveland or Buffalo, triggering interest in the phenomenon. Multiple events are already scheduled to follow it, in stadiums such as the McLane stadium in Waco, Texas, in museums or in observatories surrounded by nature such as the one on Mont Mégantico in Quebec.

The month of June is over, and although in recent days the heat has become somewhat more bearable, in some places it will be the hottest month since records began. This is the case of Lleida, where the average for this month will be 26.6 °C, the highest at least since 1960, 0.4 ºC higher than the previous record, set in 2003. In Tortosa and in the airports of Girona and Reus the average temperature of 2003 and 2022 are almost the same, but the drop in temperature in recent days has meant it stayed below the previous record. In Barcelona's Fabra Observatory, this June will be the second warmest since records began, with an average temperature almost 1 ºC lower than in 2003.

Summer has started extraordinarily early this year. Different indicators reveal that for some weeks now we have been living in full summer temperatures, even though we have not even reached June 15 yet. ARA has used details from all 87 Meteocat stations, and adding up the number of days each reached at least 30ºC, we saw this had happened 658 times before June 10. This figure alone means nothing, but in comparison with previous years it shows how exceptional this is. On average, at this time of year there are 30ºC has been reached 122 times. In 2022 the figure is almost double the previous record, which was 2015.

Late frosts are not a rare phenomenon, but the recent cold snap has been truly remarkable. Out of the 153 Meteocat stations which have over ten years of data, 124 have broken their record for the month of April. Even looking at older records, the precedents for such low temperatures in the fourth month of the year are scarce.

The drought that has been affecting some central regions for more than twelve months is truly exceptional. The areas most affected by the lack of rain are the central coast, many parts of Vallès, Montseny and even the south of Osona and Moianès, areas that in some cases are usually among the wettest in Catalonia.

If you are very involved in social networks, surely these days you have started to see maps of sulfur dioxide dispersion (SO₂), animations that draw the possible movement of gas emissions from the La Palma volcano to the Peninsula. To what extent will it be possible to perceive the SO₂ of the eruption in Catalonia? At this stage there is no indication that it will be perceptible for the population. Although the wind dynamics will indeed be part of this sulphur dioxide flow towards the Peninsula, on the way it will be dispersed and will arrive in a much lower concentration than at the source. The levels of this gas will be higher in the upper layers of the atmosphere, but at the surface the increase of SO₂ may not be perceptible.

The influx of warm air over the last few days has also had a significant impact on the UK and France, where some of the month's temperature records have fallen. The Météo France station in Pointe de Socoa, near the Basque Country, recorded a torrid minimum temperature of 26.3°C on Monday night, the highest minimum ever recorded on the French mainland in September.

The beginning of summer is a good time to take a look at the accumulated rainfall during the last months, which is an indicator of how dangerous the fire season can be. The variability of rainfall means that while some regions of Catalonia are in a normal situation or even favorable in terms of moisture conditions of forests, others are in conditions of extreme drought.

Western Canada and North American states like Washington and Oregon have recorded extraordinary and unprecedented temperatures this weekend. On Sunday the thermometer climbed to 46.6 ºC in the town of Lytton, located in the region of British Columbia, Canada. This is the highest temperature ever recorded in the country, according to the Canadian Meteorological Service. The previous record was set on July 5th, 1937, when it reached 45 degrees Celsius in a town called Yellow Grass.