Spain: Long-term drought to bring more heatwaves, widlfires

By CIARÁN GILES
Associated Press

MADRID (AP) — Spain has entered a period of a long-term drought, owing to high temperatures and low rainfall over the past three years, and likely faces another year of heatwaves and forest fires. The country’s weather agency Aemet said Friday that statistics showed Spain entered into a long drought at the end of 2022 and the first three months of 2023 show no major signs of change. Aemet says the first available predictions for the summer point to a situation of high temperatures once again and high risk of forest fires. The agency says the country experienced worse droughts in 2017, 2005 and at the end of the 1990s and 1980s. Aemet says climate change is key factor.