Spain has warmest January on record, says ministry

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain has logged the warmest January since records began in 1961, with average temperatures last month reaching 8.4 degrees Celsius (47.1° Fahrenheit), 0.4 degrees above the previous record in 2016, the Environment Ministry said on Wednesday.

The temperature in continental Spain also exceeded the average for that month in the period 1991-2020 by 2.4 degrees.

The unseasonably warm weather in the middle of winter lured people to beaches and outdoor cafes across Spain.

The ministry said the weather was "extremely warm" in the south and centre of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as the subtropical Canary Islands. It was "very warm" in the north and the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, staying "normal" only in some parts of the northeastern Ebro Valley.

In December, temperatures across Spain had already smashed records as a mass of hot air swept over the country, pushing the mercury close to 30C in the south and delaying the start of the ski season. The dry and sunny weather has also exacerbated a long-running drought in the regions of Catalonia and Andalusia.

Scientists have linked scorching temperatures and dry and windy conditions experienced in many parts of the world, including southern Europe, to climate change.

Last year was the planet's hottest on record by a substantial margin and likely the world's warmest in the last 100,000 years, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.

(Reporting by David Latona; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Gareth Jones)