An Early Documented Late-Spring Heatwave in Iberia Under Pre-Industrial Climatic Conditions

Abstract

Early instrumental meteorological observations are essential for identifying and characterizing extreme climate events prior to the modern observational era, particularly in regions where historical data are scarce. This study documents a remarkable late-spring heatwave using newly recovered daily temperature observations from Ferrol (northwestern Spain) for the period 1792–1795, retrieved from the Historical Archive of the Royal Institute and Observatory of the Spanish Navy. Despite the temporal limitations of this early dataset, its daily resolution enables a detailed analysis of short-term climatic variability and extreme temperature events. The analysis reveals an extraordinary warm episode in late May 1795, characterized by sustained positive temperature anomalies that stand out clearly against the surrounding days. Comparison with the modern climate indicates that the event was exceptional even by present-day standards, with mean temperatures approximately 2 °C above the current 95th percentile. To assess the spatial extent of the heatwave, we compared the Ferrol data with contemporaneous instrumental records from Madrid, Barcelona, and Cádiz. All three locations exhibit synchronous, pronounced positive anomalies, demonstrating that the 1795 event was a large-scale phenomenon affecting most of the Iberian Peninsula. This study highlights the critical value of historical data rescue for contextualizing modern climate extremes and extending our understanding of regional climate variability.