Catalonia registers the first half of the hottest summer since 1950. This is according to the latest report from the Meteorological Service of Catalonia (Meteocat), which states that the average temperature is 3.8 °C above the climatic average, the highest since homogeneous data has been collected. However, there are symbols that explain better than any graph how the climate is changing in Catalonia. Like the thermometer at Portal de l'Àngel, designed to record maximum temperatures of 40 °C, which have already been exceeded in the city of Barcelona. Nevertheless, the thermometer has become one of the images of the new climatic scenario experienced in the country.

When I returned from the United States and colleagues, future correspondents, came to ask me for advice for the day they could go to work there, I told them – and I tell them – that knowing American history or the political system of checks and balances is all well and good, but that the most important thing is that they be in shape. That they would experience a lot of heat and a lot of cold, that they would be subjected to extreme climatic conditions: scorching temperatures, monstrous snowfalls, and months with frozen sidewalks and without being able to have a coffee on a terrace, tornadoes, gales, that the electricity would go out, meaning the refrigerator and air conditioning. Or the heating… and that, in addition to suffering it, they would have to go and explain it on the front lines. And that if they didn't make themselves physically and mentally strong, it would be very hard for them.Well, this has already arrived here, in Catalonia. You only have to look at the records that are being broken these days:“Barcelona breaks its heat record in 113 years. The Fabra Observatory registers a temperature of 40.9 degrees”. In Vinebre, temperatures exceeded 44 degrees. And we have it for another week.It is not adventurous to think that the usual September downpours may be particularly dangerous this year, taking into account the amount of heat that the land and sea will have stored. All these extreme phenomena have a cost in health, physical and mental, in lifestyles, in leisure, but also, in the functioning of basic services and the maintenance of infrastructure. Increasingly, governments will have to drop everything they are doing to deal with emergencies and, in general, to adapt public spaces and services (streets, natural parks, schools, hospitals, residences) to the new climatic conditions. And us, too.

For days we have been living with this sticky heat. That puts us in a bad mood. That makes our children (and teachers, and monitors, and people who work in educational centers) finish the course inside boiling classrooms. The platform has denounced it Classrooms on Fire, and by moving its map of Catalonia you can see high school classrooms that reached 39 degrees. Also a chilling string of classes that have surpassed the legal limit, which states that “The temperature of the premises where sedentary work typical of offices or similar is carried out shall be between 17 and 27 degrees”. And the course has already ended and we seem to forget about it, but it shouldn't be like that.

Catalonia has been burning for days. The asphalt is boiling in the cities, apartments are suffocating in the densest neighborhoods, and in many towns, shade is a rare luxury. The heat wave is relentless, with record temperatures approaching day after day. But not everyone experiences it the same way. For some, it's a nuisance; for others, a threat.

"We ask that there are no trips to Collserola if they are not essential". This has been the appeal that the deputy mayor of Prevention and Security of the City Council of Barcelona, Albert Batlle, has launched on Friday, in the face of the heat wave that affects Catalonia and that is predicted to continue during the next days. Batlle has asked the people of Barcelona to try to "limit" their presence in the Collserola mountain range in the face of the high risk of fires due to the high temperatures. "The scenario is worrying", said the alderman, who has called the situation "critical". On Thursday the Barcelona City Council activated the municipal action plan for fire risk, which involves intensifying reinforcements to prevent new fires.