JUST when you thought summer was over, a Saharan weather ridge is set to arrive to blast Spain with mid-September temperatures of up to 40C.
The sudden heatwave will plunge the mainland and the Canary Islands back into mid-July weather conditions from Sunday until at least Wednesday.
It comes just days after a deadly autumnal storm front battered the Mediterranean coast and the Balearic Islands.
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A woman tragically died in Felanitx, a rural town in eastern Mallorca, after being swept away by a flash flood.
Winds of more than 100kph and torrential downpours dumping up to 100mm also caused chaos across the Alicante, Murcia and Almeria coastlines.
Similar heavy rainfall hit Ripoll, a town in Catalunya just inland from the Costa Brava.
But the brief autumnal respite will be rapidly replaced by an abnormally hot air mass moving up from Africa.
Temperatures are expected to surge between 8C and 10C above average for this time of year across large swathes of the peninsula, according to the experts at Meteored.
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The Guadalquivir valley in Andalucia and the Guadiana valley in Extremadura will bear the brunt of the extreme heat, with thermometers forecast to hit 39C and potentially peak at 40C.
Further north, the Ebro and Tajo valleys, alongside the Lleida depression in Catalunya, will easily surpass 35C.
The sweltering conditions will even stretch to the city of Bilbao and the Miño valley in Spain’s northwestern Galicia region, which are also bracing for highs of 35C.
Sweltering tropical nights are also set to return to the Mediterranean coast, Andalucia and the Canary Islands.
The eastern islands of Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura are expected to see thermometers surpass 35C by early next week.
Forecasters predict the intense heat will begin to weaken by Wednesday, potentially making way for a return of the autumnal storms.
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