Cristina Hodgson
WITH the new water year underway, a period that runs from October 1st to September 30th of the following year, the past 365 days has been far too dry across much of Spain and unfortunately Malaga begins the new water year with a drier autumn than usual forecast.
According to Jesus Riesco, director of the Meteorological Center of Malaga (AEMET), no heavy rains are expected until the winter.
This does not mean that there will be no rainfall in the coming weeks, in fact there is a slight chance of rain for today, Thursday October 6, after which the dry spell will return, with the rest of the season to play out a similar scenario.
Precipitation data after the end of the 2021/2022 water year reflect that the average rainfall recorded in Malaga between October 1, 2021 and September 30, 2022 has been 406 litres per square meter, when the norm is 665 litres per square meter.
The last time rainfall data recorded was above average was in the 2017/2018 water year which stood at 718 litres per square meter.
Since then, there has been a stepwise decline in the annual rainfall registered.
In 2018/2019, 585 litres per square meter were collected, in 2019/2020 it was 538, in 2020/2021 478 were recorded and this year it has been 406 litres per square meter.
“This means that we have been below average for four years in a row,” Riesco said.
In fact, the recently finalised water year has been the fifth driest since data began to be recorded at provincial level in 1961.
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