Walter Finch
AS the record-breaking heatwave took hold spreading its tendrils from the Sahara into Europe, the Olive Press went heat chasing.
Just as storm-chasers like to get up close and personal with tornadoes and hurricanes, we went to death-defying meteorological phenomena and came up with a new one: the heat chaser.
Weather forecasters had already bandied about the possibility of Spain seeing 46C while still in the month of June, and we wanted to be there to feel it hit us in the face.
So we set out for Ecija, a charming Sevillian town of baroque spires affectionately known as the frying pan of Spain.
READ MORE: ‘Remain indoors as much as possible’: New Spain heatwave could reach 46C in ‘hottest June ever’
Located in the Guadalquivir Valley in a geographical depression that traps the oppressive inland heat, Ecija has registered temperatures of over 46C in the peak summer months before (ie. not June).
In fact, it is just down the road from where Spain’s all-time record heat of 47.6C, recorded in Cordoba in August 2021.
“It’s criminal the heat that we have to endure here, but we manage,” Marga, Ecija resident born-and-bred, told the Olive Press.
READ MORE: UK heatwave is causing Brits to last-minute cancel holidays to ‘too hot’ Spain
During the peak summer months, as the sun inches its way higher into the sky, the Ecija residents scurry to the shadows.
The day starts full of life and activity. Tables and chairs go out on the broad central square, Plaza España, around 8am – when the temperature is only 30C.
The abuelos and the workers occupy the tables and queue up at the bar windows to collect their cafe con leches con hielo – ice coffee.
The shops are open and people go about their business. But there are no tourists.
Despite the abundant beauty of the baroque towers, the elegant palaces and the Roman mosaics, this is the off-season. It seems that heatwave tourism is not a thing in Sevilla province – not yet.
Even by 10.30am, people are sticking to the shade, creeping along the walls like the shadows they are sheltering in. It hit around 36C at this hour.
By midday, it’s a ghost town. It’s like a scene from one of those old westerns, in which everyone knows there’s a gunfight imminent and disappears behind their curtains – except for the Olive Press.
It’s not that we’re brave. We were just oblivious.
READ MORE: ‘It spiked by 3C in 90 minutes’: Weather expert casts doubt on Spain’s new 46C June record
The hammer really starts to fall around 2pm, when it hit 40C.
The tables and chairs are still out – but no one is sitting on them. Instead, the citizens of Ecija can be found in the air-conditioned indoors.
“I was born here, I grew up in this – but obviously I suffer,” Tamara, 24, a waitress in the main square, tells the Olive Press.
“Fortunately no one sits at the tables in the plaza during the day so I don’t have to run about as much. But it’s still hard.”
READ MORE: Number of days over 40C by start of June in Spain doubled all previous days on record COMBINED
In the tightening grip of the heatwave, is this something new? The choral response from everyone we spoke with in the town was ‘no – it’s the same heat as always.’
Business as usual. But the heat has come earlier this summer, they concede.
In the afternoon, news comes through that Spain has broken its heat record for June – 200km to the west.
While they got 46C in El Granado, we didn’t get above 43C in Ecija.
It was still hot in the frying pan of Spain. But was it hot enough to fry an egg, as the old cliche went?
By 4pm the bars have all closed and the central plaza has been roasting in uninterrupted sun for over six hours.
Even to sit on one of the stone benches was enough to fry one’s behind. We procured an egg and cracked it onto the burning surface.
Did the egg white start sizzling? Did it whiten at the edges? Did the yoke harden? Long story short it did not. Instead we just had raw egg mess on a bench.
So it wasn’t record-breaking heat in the frying pan, but dealing with it was still a way of life. The town didn’t start to come back to life till after 9pm.
“Here, we live by night,” Jon and Mihail, a pair of Romanians gearing up for Saturday night, told the Olive Press.
“Yes, it was hard to get used to at first, but it’s only two months a year.”
Given the premature nature of this heatwave, they might have to extend their endurance in the coming years.
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