Weather tracker: Spain edges towards record March heat

It has been hot across south-eastern parts of Spain this weekend with temperatures reaching the high-20s Celsius. Murcia reached 31.9C and Alicante 30.8C on Sunday. This was close to the March record: 33.3C for Murcia and 32.6C for Alicante.

The heat is expected to build through the week with temperatures more widely reaching close to or just over 30C. If these temperatures are achieved, the March temperature record could be exceeded. Highs of 28C are forecast for Madrid this Wednesday, threatening the March temperature record of 27.1C. The equivalent record for Málaga is 31.4C with weather models forecasting 31C on Thursday and Friday. However, the high temperatures are only expected to last until Friday, with temperatures falling back towards average over the weekend.

At the other side of the Mediterranean, the opposite is the case, with warm temperatures over the weekend plummeting through the course of this week. Weekend temperatures reached 15C to 25C across Turkey but in Ankara are forecast to reach just 4C on Wednesday. This is nearly 10C colder than expected for this time of year. Parts of Scandinavia, especially Norway and Finland, are also expected to be widely 5C to 10C below the seasonal norm, as colder air moves in from the north.

Finally, south-eastern parts of the US will be braced for further severe weather this week as their storm season begins to flex its muscles. Rolling Fork, Mississippi, was almost entirely destroyed last Friday night by a violent tornado that was given a preliminary strength rating of EF4 – the second highest on the enhanced Fujita scale. Further severe thunderstorms affected Mississippi on Sunday, bringing strong winds and large hailstones. Rolling Fork itself escaped the worst, but heavy rain hampered recovery efforts. A renewed round of severe thunderstorms will bring the threat of further tornadoes this Thursday and Friday, including Mississippi on Friday. The US experiences a peak in severe thunderstorm activity through the spring, beginning in the deep south before progressing northwards into the plains and eventually moving into Canada by early summer. The most severe of these storms can bring violent tornadoes, hailstones the size of grapefruits and flooding rains.