Reacción a "Many regions of Spain will experience unusually warm weather for this time of year"

Indeed, as AEMET rightly points out, this is an episode of abnormally high temperatures for this time of year and, although it is forecast to be short-lived (until the weekend), in some geographical areas the threshold temperature for a heatwave is expected to be exceeded from a health risk perspective. This means that there may be significant health impacts on particularly vulnerable groups such as the elderly, people with pre-existing conditions (cardiorespiratory, neurological, renal, etc.), people taking multiple medications, dependent people, people on low incomes, pregnant women, children and people who work intensively outdoors during the middle of the day.

As this is the first heatwave of the year, there may be a greater number of susceptible people whose pre-existing conditions may be aggravated. Furthermore, as this heatwave is mainly caused by the arrival of a mass of air from Africa, it is very likely that atmospheric concentrations of particulate matter (PM₁₀) will also increase. Furthermore, in these situations, other pollutants such as NO₂ (nitrogen dioxide) and O₃ (ozone) could also increase their concentrations in the air, especially in urban areas. This means that the health impacts associated with high temperatures are compounded by those derived from pollution, which in some cases can have a greater effect on health in the short term than those derived from the thermal anomaly itself.