After a very mild second half of the week in terms of weather, with sun and milder temperatures than usual in February, and with a weekend that will round off this sensation with a slight rise in thermometers and clear skies, Catalonia enters a new scenario marked by instability with a sudden change in weather that will force you to pull on your coat more and have your umbrella close at hand.
When does the time change start?
Starting Monday, a disturbance arrives that will put an end to the anticyclonic episode that has dominated the weather situation these days, causing a sharp drop in thermometers, which will already be noticeable on Sunday in terms of maximum temperatures, and bringing instability with a series of precipitations in the form of rain and snow and causing a remarkable disturbance at sea.
They will be days of intense cold, but not exceptional. According to him Meteorological Service of Cataloniathis pronounced thermal decrease could cause up to twelve degrees less in some some cases.
At what time will it be coldest?
Between Tuesday and Wednesday temperatures will bottom out. As of Thursday, the thermometers will begin to gradually recover, but according to the disposition of the current meteorological models, we will not have temperatures similar to the usual ones again until the beginning of the following week.
Will it be very cold?
It will not be the most severe episode. It is necessary to indicate that we have come from a few days where the thermometer has rebounded, staying well above what it would touch for these dates (between 4 and 5 ºC higher, with coastal towns that have been bordering 20 ºC in the central hours of the day ), so this The descent will be pronounced and sensitive, but it will not take us to record low temperatures. In short, it will be a few cold days but not extreme.
The weather situation will make a substantial turn from Monday.
This change of weather we will note above all the temperature, the state of the sea and, both more uncertain, the arrival of precipitation.
Obrim fil ? (1/5)
—Meteocat (@meteocat) February 3, 2023
Will we have to take the umbrella?
Yes. Regarding rainfall, the arrival of the rains is the scenario in which the models indicate with more certainty. They will appear already this Monday from noon and will extend throughout the week. It is still difficult to forecast the exact points of the territory where these precipitations will be located, but the coast and pre-coastal are the areas that will be most affected.
They will be very welcome rains taking into account the hydrological crisis affecting Catalonia, with the reservoirs of the interior basins in a critical 29% of its capacity and the threat of further drought restrictions from March.
These same models, already with much less reliability when analyzing medium-term meteorological scenarios, indicate that the rains could continue the following week, although they would be less intense.
Where will it snow?
This is where the weather models disagree. While the GFS ventured at the beginning of the week to highlight a massive snowfall throughout the territory, reaching even low levels and leaving the snowfall of a week ago in just an appetizer, and the European model ECMWF, on the other hand, was much more restrained In their forecast, more and more the top staff of the meteorological models converge in indicating that there will be snowfall, which would focus on the afternoon-night of Monday and throughout Tuesdaybut without knowing how to specify dimensions and disposition.
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On Sunday we will leave doubts, but for now the most realistic forecast -which does not mean the most accurate given the continuous change of scenarios- is that we will have snow at medium heights, above 500 to 600 meters, as well as in the northern third -Pyrenees. and Pre-Pyrenees-, in the inland regions of the province of Girona and those to the north of Barcelona-, Central Catalonia and, in the province of Tarragona, in the area of Montsant and the Els Ports NP.
The possibility of it reaching low levels will be marked by the possible appearance of a ‘levantada’ that reaches the coast, further lowering the thermometers accompanied by more rainfall. In that case, for now more remote but not completely ruled out, we could have snow on the coast and the metropolitan area.