The exceptionally long heat wave that Spain has experienced this summer (linking several of them like never before) could be creating the conditions to experience new extreme phenomena in autumn. According to experts, it is not ruled out that in a few weeks the conditions will be met to generate a medicine (mediterranean hurricane) due to the temperature that the waters have acquired this summer.
According to the specialized portal tiempo.com, “for the training of a doctor a series of very specific conditions at the atmospheric level are required, together with surface temperatures in the Mediterranean above 27º C”. “Of course, if the sea temperatures are getting higher, there will be more and more the possibility that the marine conditions necessary for the formation of these adverse phenomena will be favored,” says Yurima Celdrán on the aforementioned website.
And it is that the heat waves have not only left a true trace of temperature records on land, but also in the sea. Spain has been in a heat wave situation for 26 days, becoming the second summer with the most days in this situation, surpassed only by the summer of 2015, when there were 29 days of extreme heat.
marine heat wave
This fact has caused “not only the atmosphere to heat up disproportionately, but also our seas.” The Mediterranean Sea has been reaching above-average values on the surface since the end of May. In fact, in the last week it has suffered a marine heat wave.
This phenomenon occurs when sea temperatures are abnormally warm in a given region of the sea for a prolonged period of time. In fact, temperatures in the sea have reached up to 30ºC in various points of the Mediterranean coast, with values that have been between 4ºC and 6ºC above normal at this time of year.
In this way, the ingredients are being given for the formation of hurricanes in the Mediterranean, continues Yurima Celdrán. “Higher Mediterranean temperatures provide a greater source of energy for medicans, further amplifying their destructiveness.” “Sea temperatures are expected to be higher than normal this fallso, if the necessary atmospheric conditions are met, it would not be unreasonable to think that our Mediterranean Sea could host a medicane this 2022 & rdquor ;, he adds.
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These hurricanes are no longer rare in the Mediterranean basin. Since 2011, this sea has spawned five medicanes, with the most recent taking place in 2020, wreaking havoc.
The medicines are cyclones that acquire the category of hurricane in the Mediterranean (sustained winds equal to or greater than 100 km/h) and that usually form during the months of September, October and November. They generally take on tropical characteristics while retaining some aspects of extratropical cyclones.