The Indian summer peaked this Tuesday, with an atmosphere clearly too warm for the time of year. Many highs of 21 to 26 ºC were recorded, but locally these figures were exceeded in the Priorat and the Ebro valley, reaching 27 ºC. It was a short-sleeved midday more typical of September than late October, with up to five degrees above average. But all of this will be history in the coming days, as from this Wednesday temperatures will go down and normalize. Calm will continue to dominate, but some changes will begin to appear. We will arrive at the Castanyada with an atmosphere typical for the time of year: at night it will be cold, and at midday it will no longer be hot.

Could the riots experienced in Barcelona this Saturday happen again? While the circumstances of the call to protest are still being investigated, alerts of new calls for this weekend in the Catalan capital and other cities across the State are arriving. What is known, for now, is that social networks have been the method for gathering young people, many of whom are minors, who were involved in the riots. The operation is called Blocus, and it uses Instagram and TikTok, as well as WhatsApp and Telegram groups, to organize mass movements.

"We only talked about that with friends. About Paris. About the videos appearing on TikTok. I wanted to protest," he says, now free. The phone rang at two in the morning. It was the Mossos d'Esquadra and they had arrested the boy. The next morning they went to the City of Justice and entered a room full of relatives who, like them, were surprised, stressed, worried. Fathers crying. Mothers denying that their son was capable of doing all that. They reunited with him. All the children were minors and all had been arrested for the disturbances that were recorded this Saturday night in Barcelona. "It was chaos. There were only two lawyers for all the children," the relatives comment.

The week has started with a new leap forward in temperatures. Yesterday, 25 ºC was already exceeded in the Ebro valley, and 20 ºC in most regions, highlighting the almost 28 ºC recorded at the Riba-roja reservoir (Ribera d'Ebre). An atmosphere warmer than what would correspond to this time of year that will peak today, as we will still add a few more degrees. But this little summer will not have much continuity, as from Wednesday and especially Thursday temperatures will go down and we will arrive at the Castanyada with more normal values for the dates. All this with absolute calm due to the anticyclone affecting a large part of Europe.

The mobilizations taking place around the world (from Bangladesh to Barcelona, passing through Milan, Paris, and Madrid) can evidently have elements in common, starting with the fact that they are mobilizations on the streets of these cities that arise simultaneously, led by young people. But there are also differences that advise against viewing them as parts of the same whole. Here there is everything: protests, revolts, and demonstrations with more or less clear motivations, objectives, and slogans. And then there are also riots, blind acts of vandalism, and hollow actions that at most create social alarm and chaos, not to mention the destruction and looting. They seek to blend in with the other movements, and in fact, this confusion is their main objective.

Saturday's violence in Barcelona has changed the conversation. In September it was Ceuta, then Maricarmen Abascal and, now, the evening of broken glass in Barcelona, with the threat that next Saturday we will be back at it. What do we know and what do we not know about what happened? The most important thing is what we do not know: who summoned these young people via TikTok?

Russian President Vladimir Putin described this Sunday as an "obvious exaggeration" the accusations blaming Moscow for fueling the protests that are shaking several European cities. In an interview with the Russian public television channel VGTRK, he asserted that European leaders are looking for external culprits in order to avoid assuming their responsibilities regarding social unrest. US President Donald Trump has also spoken out about the protests in Europe, but linked them to immigration, following several weeks of student mobilizations in France and the riots on Saturday in the center of Barcelona.

Throughout the week there had been announcements on social media of a mobilization on Saturday in the image of what was happening in France. It was not clear who was organizing it –it is still unknown–, and the call spread through TikTok and other social media and was aimed primarily at young people. In Madrid it failed, but in Barcelona more than 500 young people gathered, many of them minors, mostly boys, who barely even tried to pretend they were moved by a protest and quickly moved on to clash with the police and loot clothing or footwear shops for young people and electronics stores in a way that seemed planned. Despite the planned police deployment, it was not enough and the young people managed to loot fourteen establishments, destroy urban furniture, injure police officers and cause chaos in the city center. The result has been 128 people arrested, most of them minors, and, above all, the feeling that control has been lost.

The anticyclonic calm that we have had during the weekend will continue during this last week of October, which will end with the celebration of the Castanyada. There will be no notable meteorological news, with no rainfall in sight and with temperatures that will experience ups and downs. We will start the week with afternoons warmer than they should be at this time of year, and we will end it with lower maximums that are normal for the dates. Mind you, watch out for the thermal contrast between the cool mornings and the pleasantness of the afternoons, we will have to dress in layers. With the current maps, it seems that the night of the Castanyada will also be calm and between cool and cold, with the usual values for these dates.

The novelty of Saturday's violence was, according to the Mossos, that the hooded individuals did not carry out the classic action of hiding at the tail end of an organized protest demonstration, but rather were summoned on TikTok, met up via WhatsApp in groups of no more than 15 or 20 youths (this, in their jargon, is called “the funnel”), planted themselves in the center of Barcelona and started destroying and looting. In a word, the violent ones began breaking windows, skipping the preliminaries. And the police were surprised by the virulence and the impact.

They are afraid and they do not hide it. "We are terrified. Because of what happened yesterday and what could happen on October 31st [when there is a new call for protest], on the 11th with the general strike, or on the 29th with the elections." The person speaking is Albert Moya, who, together with his father and his aunt, runs three flower stalls in Plaça de Catalunya that were destroyed yesterday. This Sunday he has reopened, with the windows broken and covered with cardboard. "Let's see what happens tonight, with the Barça - Madrid match, too. Now any spark can make violence break out again," he reflects.

Perhaps you remember the therians. For a few days last February, these teenagers who supposedly identified with animals and acted as such monopolized the conversation. Many articles and hours of radio and television were dedicated to analyzing this phenomenon, which until then no one had ever heard of. Today we know that rather than young people who thought they were kittens, the therians were lab mice. Let me explain.

Did they expect it? The answer is yes. The Mossos d'Esquadra were expecting protests this Saturday in Barcelona. They had been monitoring social media for days and had detected calls to emulate the riots in Paris. They knew there were Telegram groups with 700 youths. Since 4 p.m., more than 300 youths were identified and hammers and other metal tools were seized that they intended to use to loot businesses. But were they surprised? Very much so. Initially, about 300 people were expected, and there were more than 500.

The calm of the last few days will continue into this Sunday, after a cooler Saturday with a sky veiled by the presence of high clouds. The sun will try to prevail, although bands of high clouds will still arrive that will not manage to cover it. Where there will be more clouds is on the northern side of the Pyrenees, where some minor precipitation will arrive towards the afternoon. The coming week will continue to be marked by stability and by a temperature that will rise a little more.

A friend sends me a beautiful photograph of a banner hanging in France, with the streets full of protesters, where it reads: “The bourgeoisie will prepare for war, the youth prepare the future”. It is this constant tension between the pessimistic and self-interested vision of fear, that of blaming migrants or the growth of cities (can you imagine if our grandparents, in the sixties, had opposed the demographic trend?) and the responsibility of planning a somewhat more encouraging future that connects me with the great authors of European urban planning and architecture. Why get into the mud of projects and construction work, instead of settling for what is already there?

The calm of the last few days will continue over the weekend, as we are under the influence of the Azores anticyclone. However, tails of very worn-out fronts associated with powerful and distant Atlantic storms will continue to arrive, causing small changes. For example, during last night some scattered showers fell in parts of the coast, which managed to leave 17 mm in just half an hour in Cabrils (Maresme). This Saturday, however, variability will dominate, with a cooler environment, while on Sunday the sun and tranquility will prevail everywhere and the environment will be milder. In short, typical autumn weather awaits us, with Atlantic dynamics and ups and downs of the thermometers.

Exactly one year ago, the Vila de Gràcia in Barcelona confirmed that it was definitively losing the Ona bookstore, one of the most iconic in the area. These days, the neighborhood has seen how the commemoration of that event coincided with the opening of a new establishment that, unintentionally, has become a symbol of how the city's commercial landscape is transforming. In the premises where the bookstore used to be, at 217 Gran de Gràcia street, a new 24-hour supermarket is now open.

They have been long-awaited, but the work to complete the tram connection along the Diagonal will begin, barring any last-minute unforeseen events, this summer. This was announced by the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, in an interview with SER Catalunya, in which he detailed that the City Council's government commission approved this Thursday the necessary financial allocation of 120 million euros to carry out the work, which will be put out to tender in "two or three" weeks.

Both today and in the coming days, the weather will remain changeable, as, although high pressure and sun will dominate, we will continue to be under the indirect effects of some Atlantic fronts. In short, the sky will continue to undergo changes, but with very little rain in sight. Today, for example, will be a fairly sunny day, but between the evening and dawn, some showers will reappear. Temperatures will experience new rises and falls, but will always remain in check.

After some local and minor showers in the northeastern regions between yesterday afternoon and this early morning, no precipitation is expected anywhere today and it will be a calm day. However, the tail end of an Atlantic front is crossing us, which will cause the sky to be more variable overall and the weather to be cooler. In fact, this morning we woke up to colder temperatures in most regions, and even with frosts that have gained ground in the Pyrenees. No significant new rain episodes are expected in the coming days. The weather will continue to change, with little rain but with intervals of clouds that will come and go. Temperatures will experience ups and downs and will be kept in check, with a full autumn atmosphere and cold nights.