Sixteen of the 18 districts of continental Portugal are on red alert this Wednesday, the most serious, due to the heat, with more than a hundred municipalities in maximum danger of rural fire, according to the IPMA.
The districts of Braga, Vila Real, Bragança, Guarda, Viseu, Porto, Aveiro, Coimbra, Castelo Branco, Leiria, Santarém, Lisboa, Portalegre, Setúbal, Évora and Beja will be until 00:00 on Thursday under red notice due to the persistence of extremely high values of the maximum temperature.
According to the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and the Atmosphere (IPMA), the red alert corresponds to “an extreme risk weather situation”.
The districts of Viana do Castelo and Faro escape the red, but are under orange and yellow warningrespectively, until 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, also due to the persistence of high values of the maximum temperature.
Almost all the municipalities of the 18 districts of continental Portugal present this Wednesday maximum or very high danger of rural fire.
Fire danger, determined by the IPMA, has five levels, ranging from low to high, and calculations are obtained from air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and the amount of precipitation in the last 24 hours. hours.
According to the IPMA, since July 6, very high values of maximum and minimum air temperature have been recorded in mainland Portugal, indicating that they were observed on Tuesday. temperatures above 40°C in much of the territoryespecially in the northern and central regions, a situation that will be repeated today, still remaining in the interior regions on Thursday and Friday.
Thus, it is expected that the highest air temperature values may occur on the 13th or 14th in some places, especially in Alentejo and Vale do Tejo, where values of the order of 46°C can be recorded, and in the northeast of Trás -os-Montes, with values between 40 and 44°C. The occurrence of tropical nights (minimum temperature above 20°C) persists in most of the territory, at least until the night of 14 to 15”, indicates that organization.
Due to these meteorological conditions and the forecast of low values of relative humidity of the air, temporarily below 20% in large areas of the interior, the rural fire danger will present the maximum and very high classes in almost the entire north. and central interior and inland Algarve until the end of this week.
This situation of very hot weather results from the circulation of a mass of very hot and dry airoriginating in North Africa, which will persist until Friday, with temperature values above or well above the average.
Mainland Portugal has been in a contingency situation since Monday.
Source: Observadora
