We wake up after a night of temperature contrasts. It has been warm and tropical in many regions, and scorching in parts of the coast and elevated areas of the pre-coast. The scorching night has even been repeated in Portbou (Alt Empordà), where temperatures have not dropped below 31 ºC all night. This location recorded the warmest night since records began in our region, specifically the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, with a minimum of 31.9 ºC. Also noteworthy are the minimums of 28.8 ºC at the Fabra observatory and 28.6 ºC in the Raval neighborhood of Barcelona. In contrast, these figures differ greatly from the coolness experienced in some areas, such as the valleys of the Pyrenees, where temperatures have dropped below 10 ºC.

The heatwave's peak continues to shatter records. The most notable is what was reached at the Fabra observatory in Barcelona, where temperatures exceeded 40 ºC and the absolute heat record, which had been in place since July 2024 at this location, was broken. Specifically, 40.8 ºC were provisionally reached at the Fabra station of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona (RACAB), and 40.5 ºC were confirmed at the Meteocat station. This is a figure that stands out particularly because in the more than 113 years of records at this observatory, such figures have never been reached.

The week has started with suffocating weather, and in some places yesterday was the hottest day of the summer so far, with values similar to those recorded on June 22nd, when the first heatwave occurred. We've had two heavier nights of sleep, especially on the coast, pre-coast, and in the south, with many tropical and some torrid minimums, especially in coastal stretches and in the north of Alt Empordà. Yesterday the maximums already made a significant leap forward and were around 40 ºC in many inland areas, especially in the south and Ponent. Notable were the almost 42 ºC maximum in Vinebre (Ribera d’Ebre) or the 41 in Lleida, and even on the pre-coast of Barcelona they approached 40 ºC, with up to 39.2 ºC in Vallirana (Baix Llobregat). A situation of persistent extreme heat that facilitated the generation of simultaneous fires. The meteorological conditions have improved during the night and have helped to advance favorably in the extinction tasks, with a drop in temperature and less wind.

The meteorological chronicle has, for weeks, been a simple collection of heat, sun, and more heat, with practically no new developments or notable changes. This weekend has not broken this monotony, with heat that has been intensifying and will do so even more during this new week. On Sunday, temperatures already approached 40 ºC inland, and this night has been tropical in many places, and torrid in coastal stretches, highlighting the 28.5 ºC minimum in Portbou (Alt Empordà) due to the reheated tramuntana wind, or the 27.6 ºC in the Raval neighborhood of Barcelona. The temperature will continue its relentless rise, which has multiplied the alerts for intense heat in many regions by Meteocat. The alerts extend throughout the country, and are red - the maximum possible danger - especially on Wednesday. The second heatwave of the summer is here, and it will be long and suffocating, as it will last for almost the entire week.

The heat intensified on Saturday, after a few days of respite with more controlled heat. It is the prelude to a new heatwave that will start this Sunday and push the mercury up to 42 or 43 °C in Ponent and the Ebro basin, with fully sweltering heat that will also reach the rest of the country. It will not be as intense a heatwave as the one we suffered in June, but we will once again be well above the meteorological average for early July. All this with a sun that will prevent any possible cloudiness or showers and with a risk of fire that remains high.

We continue to be very attentive to the evolution of the serious fire in Baix Empordà, which has been burning uncontrollably since Friday morning. The wind will continue in the coming hours, first with tramuntana and then turning to marinada. Consult here the expected evolution of the meteorological conditions in the area. All this after a very warm Friday that left us many maximums of 32°C to 37°C, but even more so in the interior of the Ebro, with almost 39°C maximum in Benissanet (Ribera d'Ebre). A weekend is starting that will kick off the second heatwave of the summer. The mercury will soar especially from Sunday, when this episode will officially begin and will last until the middle of next week. In fact, Meteocat has already activated the first alerts on Sunday for this new heatwave, which will last at least until Wednesday.

Guillem Agulló was an 18-year-old Valencian nationalist, anti-fascist, and independentist who was murdered by a gang of Nazis in April 1993 in Montanejos (Alt Millars). His only crime was being known for his ideas by his murderer, Pedro Cuevas. Cuevas stabbed him in the heart. Death was almost instantaneous. The murderer and his gang left the scene singing the Cara al sol. This detail is important because, in the subsequent trial, a witness was forced to sing the well-known fascist anthem, theoretically to prove that it identified him correctly. It is just one of the many surreal elements present in the whole affair.And it is that the crime against Agulló opened the doors to an unspeakable process that masked the facts, excused the assassins and criminalized the Valencian nationalist and anti-fascist movement. All this is what the professor, writer and musician Rafa Xambó has been patiently investigating the professor, writer and musician Rafa Xambó for four long years. The result of this research is The murder of Guillem: lies, fascists and robes, a huge volume of more than 400 pages, with dense lettering, which explains how the Montanejos crime was treated in the precarious and colonized Valencian media ecosystem and what the judicial outcome of all this was.This volume is the culmination of a series of initiatives of different types that have kept the case hot over the last decades. I am talking about the novel Guillem, by Núria Cadenes (Amsterdam Llibres, 2020) or the film La mort de Guillem, by Carlos Marqués-Marcet (2020). This latter title was broadcast by the televisions of Catalonia, Valencian Country, and the Balearic Islands, and achieved figures of more than 600,000 viewers in total.Xambó, however, does not fictionalize. His has been a work of newspaper archives and of looking closely at the judicial summary. His conclusions are unassailable: after the crime, the main local newspaper, Las Provincias, launched a brutal campaign to excuse the assassins, attributing it all to a “youth brawl” (sic). The other media outlets (including Canal 9) also played an incomplete and unprofessional role, but the newspaper from the capital city took the prize.The end of a convulsive transition in the Valencian Country

For those who do not know the history of Las Provincias, it will be necessary to explain that the newspaper founded in 1866 by Teodor Llorente (patriarch of the Valencian Renaixença) was the main agent, since 1979, for the promotion of anti-Catalanism in Valencia and the criminalization of nationalism. Agulló's episode, in reality, was the cherry on a rotten cake that had been poisoning Valencian society for twenty years. At its head, the sadly famous María Consuelo Reyna.In reality, the stab in the heart against Guillem Agulló represents, in a way, the end of the convulsive Transition in the Valencian Country. A period of unpunished crimes (the bombings of Joan Fuster and other intellectuals, aggressions against democratic authorities...) which Xambó takes care to recall so that we are not at all surprised by the ridiculous conviction of Pedro Cuevas with which the trial that took place in Castelló de la Plana was settled.As a sardonic epilogue to this story, it will be necessary to note what Pedro Cuevas did – the kid who claims he killed Agulló for esoteric, juvenile, and testosteronic reasons – after serving the four years in prison to which he was sentenced. He immediately joined the FAS (Antisystem Front) and was implicated in Operation Panzer. In this raid, the Civil Guard dismantled a neo-Nazi cell with weapons and propaganda that was dedicated to the hunt for anti-fascists and immigrants.This is how history is written, undoubtedly...

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The Meteorological Service of Catalonia (Meteocat) has issued a notice for the second heatwave of the short summer we've had starting Sunday and until at least Wednesday of next week. The subtropical anticyclone and the warm air mass from North Africa will once again fully affect southwestern Europe, which will send thermometers soaring and make the heat extreme again, with many highs from 30 to 40 ºC, higher in the hottest inland areas, mugginess and over 30 ºC on the coast and new sleepless nights in many regions. A situation that will affect more areas, especially in southwestern Europe.

]]> The intense and suffocating heat reached a new peak yesterday, especially in the pre-coastal areas, in Central Catalonia and in the south. Temperatures neared 40 ºC in the Ebro's interior, and even surpassed 38 ºC in the pre-coastal region. Benissanet (Ribera d'Ebre) registered the highest temperature in Catalonia on Tuesday, with 39.7 ºC. Additionally, 39.3 ºC were reached at the Siurana reservoir, 39 ºC in Vinebre (Ribera d'Ebre), 38.7 ºC in Sant Salvador de Guardiola (Bages), and 38.4 ºC in Vacarisses (Vallès Occidental). However, from the evening onwards, the temperature began to drop, and last night was not as oppressive as the previous two. Most tropical minimum temperatures were concentrated in points along the coast and pre-coastal areas, with still some very localized torrid minimums. In much of the interior, temperatures have already dropped below 20 ºC.

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The heat gives no respite and yesterday, despite the thermometer dropping in many regions, the fully sweltering atmosphere continued, with very marked mugginess on the coast. Only in areas of the Pyrenees, the northeast interior, and the central pre-coastal region did it cool down more thanks to afternoon showers and thunderstorms which, in some cases, were accompanied by hail or ice pellets. For example, the heavy downpour that yesterday left 70 l/m² in Santa Coloma de Farners (Selva) suddenly dropped the mercury from almost 36 ºC maximum to 18 ºC. In Camprodon (Ripollès) more than 45 l/m² accumulated.

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The company Castilla Termal and the Alfauir City Council, in La Safor, have an urbanistic-touristic project that plans to convert the family crypt of Ausiàs March into a thermal water spa. In a spa, if you prefer. The crypt, in effect, is located in the monastery of Sant Jeroni de Cotalba, a jewel of the Duchy of Gandia, of the Crown of Aragon and of the Valencian Golden Age (which is the 15th century), a testament to the power of the Borja lineage, one of the most effervescent moments in the history of the Catalan Countries and Southern Europe. Now the Alfauir City Council and the Trénor family – who have owned it for more than a hundred years – have decided to give this unique place in the world a “hotel use”. They call it the Special Protection Plan for the Northern Sector (speculators, when they destroy something, do so by saying they are protecting it) and they are in a hurry to move it forward, so much so that the project's processing has entered a phase they call “acceleration”. The mayor, incidentally, is from Compromís, but he competes with the lifelong asphalt-laying and concrete-pouring right wing in his capacity to accelerate “strategic projects”. From a heritage, cultural, and historical point of view, if this project goes ahead (it is still in the exhibition phase), a true aberration will have been committed.It has been explained/denounced the other day, in an article in the newspaper Levante, by the poet Joan Deusa (don't miss his Ítaca arrasada, an excellent book), of the Saforíssims, a very bright poetic group that includes names like Maria Josep Escrivà, Àngels Gregori, Josep Lluís Roig, Isabel Canet Ferrer and Teresa Pascual. The master Josep Piera, who died recently and was also from Safor, was an enthusiastic reader of Ausiàs March. Piera wrote about March and about the Borjas (as Joan Francesc Mira has also done: this is an article full of great names from our culture) and would undoubtedly receive this news with the wry humor he used to defend himself from consternation. With wry humor and pain. In Sant Jeroni de Cotalba rested the remains of Alfons el Vell and a dozen members of the March family, including Ausiàs' father, Pere March; his deaf sister, Peirona, and the poet's two wives, Isabel Martorell (sister of Joanot Martorell, author of Tirant lo Blanc) and Joana Escorna. I have written 'rested' because nowadays these remains, after being cataloged, are kept at the University of Valencia, awaiting their return after the monastery chapel has been duly musealized. Instead, they want to build a luxury hotel with bubble pools there.Ausiàs March is one of the essential poets of Catalan literature and one of the most important in European culture during the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Any verse of his is infinitely more important for the Valencian Country, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands than our current constant verbosity that supposedly reflects on the being and non-being of the country. Any aggression towards his memory is an attack that we cannot allow. Perhaps the drama is having to remember it.

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The core of the warm air mass affecting us these days continues to move away towards Eastern Europe and its effects will begin to weaken from today due to the passage of a frontal tail. In fact, during Sunday afternoon and night, showers appeared, especially in Ponent and the Pyrenees, which brought little precipitation and strong gusts of wind. However, the thermometer still rose considerably this weekend and the heat peaks have been notable, with a maximum of up to 39.4 °C yesterday in the city of Lleida or 38.8 °C in Albesa, in La Noguera (at the end of this information you will find the highest maximums reached yesterday).

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The mass of warm air that is affecting us these days is losing strength and will move away towards the center of Europe. However, the heat is still intense and, once again, we have registered values close to 38°C in some regions of Ponent and Empordà. For example, in Cabanes they reached 38.7°C yesterday and in Lleida, up to 38.6°C. During the rest of the weekend we will continue under the effects of the anticyclonic ridge and the incursion of very warm air and dust in suspension from North Africa. Next week the thermometers will drop, but the latest maps reduce the possibility of a forceful cooling.

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Although the heatwave has technically ended and we haven't reached 40°C in Catalonia for two days, the fact is that the heat remains very intense everywhere. Yesterday there was a torrid peak in the northeast, where, as in Ponent, 38°C was reached, in Girona municipalities such as Cabanes, la Bisbal d'Empordà or the Darnius-Boadella reservoir. A suffocating atmosphere with marked humidity on the coast, which will continue throughout this last weekend of June, with values ​​still more than five degrees above the average in many cases. All this with sun, calm and afternoon showers only tomorrow in the Pyrenees.

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Temperatures dropped yesterday inland, and for the first time this week, 40 ºC were no longer reached anywhere. Only 38ºC were exceeded in Ponent as the highest figures of the day. On the other hand, in parts of the coast and pre-coast, this decrease was not noticed. Technically, we have left the heatwave behind, but the heat remains intense and fully summery, with heavy mugginess on the coast and values clearly above usual for this time of year. In fact, tonight has been warmer than previous ones, with tropical lows in many places and scorching in some coastal spots, highlighting the 26.8 ºC minimum in Barcelona's Raval neighborhood.

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The heat has been the protagonist this Saint John's Eve, one of the warmest since records began. The temperature again exceeded 40°C in Ponent yesterday for the umpteenth consecutive day, although it is already far from the 42 or 43°C recorded on Monday and Tuesday, when we experienced the peak of the heatwave. The temperature will begin to drop progressively from today, although in no case will we notice a significant cooling and we will remain with values above the climatic average. Of course: 40°C will no longer be reached anywhere for the first time this week, and the heatwave is officially declared over. The maps indicate that a more substantial cooling could arrive next week.

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The heat has once again been very intense and torrid in recent hours, despite a slight decrease compared to the temperature peak on Monday, which reached up to 43 ºC as the most notable figure in Vilanova de Segrià. The third day of the heatwave once again pushed thermometers above 35 ºC in much of the interior, with over 40 ºC in Ponent and the Ebro interior. Notable figures include the 41.4 ºC reached in Alcarràs, 41.3 in Lleida, and 41.2 in Alfarràs (Segrià) as the highest readings on Tuesday. No records have been registered in Catalonia, but they have in France, as Monday afternoon, Monday night to Tuesday, and Tuesday have been the warmest in history since records began in the neighboring country, with numerous heat records and temperatures clearly above 40 ºC.

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The heatwave has peaked in recent hours. Temperatures rose even further yesterday, with between 8 and 13 degrees above average in inland areas and the Pyrenees, and many maximums ranged between 35 and 40 ºC in the pre-coastal areas and inland. But these figures were surpassed in Ponent, as well as in parts of the Ebro and other inland areas. The extraordinary 43 ºC recorded in Vilanova de Segrià stand out, which is the highest temperature reached so far this year in Catalonia. The peak of tropical and torrid minimums was also experienced in many areas (you will find all the most notable data on the extreme heat of recent hours at the end of this information).

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