ClimavisoTen Spanish weather myths, checked against the warnings
Published 22 October 2026 · Climaviso
Does it always rain in Galicia? Is Seville Spain's frying pan? Does Madrid have “nine months of winter and three of hell”? We checked them against the severe-weather warnings of the last seven full years (2019–2025), zone by zone. Some clichés hold up; others, not so much.
One caveat first: we don't measure how much it rains or how hot it gets here, but how many days have a severe-weather warning. A warning is issued when a threshold is forecast to be passed, and each zone has its own thresholds. So the real question behind each cliché is: how often does the weather go beyond what's normal for that place?
1. “It always rains in Galicia”
False, by warnings
Barcelona's zone gets more rain warnings than any of Galicia's big cities, even though Barcelona's threshold is higher: its yellow warning starts at 20 litres per square metre in an hour, against 15 in Galicia.
| Zone of | Rain-warning days a year |
|---|---|
| Barcelona | 39 |
| Vigo | 34 |
| Santiago de Compostela | 26 |
| A Coruña | 19 |
Average for 2019 to 2025.
Rain that falls often isn't the same as rain that falls hard, and warnings are for the second kind. In seven years, Galicia's 16 zones added up to just 8 red days: half a day per zone, the lowest of any of Spain's regions. One nuance: inland Pontevedra is among the five Spanish zones with the most rain warnings.
2. “It's never hot in the north”
Depends where
On the Asturian coast, nearly true: its two coastal zones go most years without a heat warning. But Bilbao has about 10 heat-warning days a year, more than twice Barcelona's 4, with the same threshold, 34 °C. And all 9 red days in Bilbao's zone over these seven years were for heat.
3. “Seville is Spain's frying pan”
Nearly: the frying pan is Córdoba
The Córdoba countryside is the Spanish zone with the most heat warnings: 51 days a year. Next come the Guadalquivir valley in Jaén (48) and Morena y Condado, also in Jaén (42); the Seville countryside is fourth (41). All four share Spain's highest threshold, 38 °C for a yellow warning, as does much of the south. Córdoba also has more red heat days than Seville: 15 against 12.
4. “Madrid: nine months of winter and three of hell”
False: more hell than winter
In Madrid's zone, summer (June to August) brings about 41 warning days a year; winter (December to February), about 10. Heat adds up to 36 warning days a year; cold, 7, and snow, 1. The busiest month is July and the calmest, February.
5. “Zaragoza is the city of the cierzo wind”
Half true
The wind shows: Zaragoza's zone has about 21 wind-warning days a year. But it has far more for heat (39) and storms (25), and 16 of its 20 red days were for heat. Zaragoza is also the provincial capital with the second-most warnings, after Lleida: 89 days a year. And for wind warnings it is beaten by Almería (32 a year) and, above all, by the southern Tarragona pre-coast (52), the zone with the most wind warnings in Spain.
6. “Fog is a Galician thing”
False
The zones with the most fog warnings are the central plain of Lleida and the plateaus around Valladolid and Zamora, with about 12 days a year each. In the zones of A Coruña and Vigo, practically none. The fog that brings warnings is winter fog in the inland valleys and plateaus.
7. “Nothing ever happens on the Costa del Sol”
Few warnings, but many reds
Málaga's zone has a warning about 35 days a year, well below a typical Spanish zone (54). But when it comes, it comes hard: 15 red days in seven years, 9 for rain and 6 for heat. That's more than Madrid and Barcelona combined (5 each).
8. “The weather's always good in the Canary Islands”
True in Las Palmas; not across the islands
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria's zone has about 26 warning days a year and no red days: among provincial capitals, only Oviedo has as few. But a few kilometres away, eastern, southern and western Gran Canaria adds up to 16 red days, 15 of them for heat, and La Gomera has 39 wind-warning days a year. The warning for airborne dust (calima) is also almost exclusive to the islands.
9. “Bad weather is a winter thing”
False
July and August are by far Spain's busiest warning months: across all zones, each has more than twice as many as February, March, April or May. Summer is the season with the most warnings in 126 of the 182 warning zones, and the calendar's busiest days fall in mid-August. January comes third, mostly for cold, wind and snow.
10. “The weather's always bad in the mountains”
True in the Pyrenees; false in Sierra Nevada
Spain's three busiest warning zones are the Huesca Pyrenees (129 days a year), the Lleida Pyrenees (123) and the Girona Pyrenees (107). In the Huesca Pyrenees, that is more than one day in three. But the Nevada y Alpujarras zone, home to the highest peaks on the mainland, has only about 20 warning days a year and no red days: one of Spain's five calmest zones.
Check your own cliché
Find your town on the map to see its warnings day by day, or set it against another in the comparison tool. Some match-ups already settled: bad weather by city. And to see the whole country at a glance, look at Spain in six maps.
Sources
- Warnings: official AEMET warnings, collected by Climaviso. Averages over the full years 2019 to 2025. Each town gets its warning zone's warnings; a day with warnings of several types counts under each type.
- Thresholds by zone: AEMET, Meteoalerta plan, annex 1 (31 May 2022).
Towns in this article
A warning is not damage; a zone is not a building.