The rain in Spain falls mainly where? This is a map of the areas where the most has fallen this month...

Some provincial cities are already above the full-month rainfall record for March

Luis Cano

Madrid

Sunday, 23 March 2025, 23:49

The extraordinary rainfall in March 2025 is breaking records in some Spanish cities and well above average in most of them. In many provincial capitals, in only half a month, the normal rainfall values for the whole month have been beaten, and in several of them, the historical maximum values for March have even been smashed.

In the first half of March, Madrid city sat at record highs compared to a full month of March. Between 1 and 16 March 2025, the MadridRetiro weather station recorded 148.4 millimetres of accumulated rain, according to ABC's calculations based on open source data from the Spanish Meteorological Agency (Aemet). The best historical record for the Spanish capital in the third month of the year was 140.7 mm reached in 2018 in the full month, from 1 to 31 March. The year 2025 has only needed half a month to beat the March record, with rain 14 days, on its way to also surpassing the record of 22 days of rainfall in March, reached in 1936.

The following map shows the number of days of rain and the millimetres of water accumulated from 1 to 16 March 2025, both included, and their comparison with their average or normal climatological values and with their historical record or extreme values. The analysis has been carried out by ABC based on the Aemet's open source data, taking into account the data from the stations closest to the centre of the capitals of each province.

Historic records

Like Madrid, Albacete, Guadalajara and Huelva are the other cities that have needed only half a month to break their record of accumulated water in a full March. In Albacete the record for accumulated rainfall was half a century old. There it rained on 15 of the first 16 days of the month. In Guadalajara, in addition to beating its record for accumulated water, on the 16th day it was only two days away from also beating its record for the number of days with rainfall in the third month of the year.

In the first half of the month, no provincial city had yet broken the record for days with rainfall in a full month of March; although many, such as Guadalajara, will have no problem in surpassing it with the rains forecast for the next few days. Huesca Huesca and Teruel are only three days away from achieving it, and Almeria is only four days away.

Numerous cities will break their respective records for accumulated water in the coming days, if the rainfall forecasts are fulfilled. Logroño, Soria, Murcia, Lérida, Seville, Palma de Mallorca and Avila are just a handful of umbrella days away from exceeding their highs.

Above its historical average

While only a few provincial cities have broken all-time records in just half a month, there are many that have surpassed their normal records for the whole month. Cities such as Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante, Seville and Malaga, among a score of provincial capitals, in only half a month have already received rainfall above what is considered normal for the whole month of March, and have also had more rainy days than the average expected for the whole month.

Other provincial capital cities such as Zaragoza, Valladolid, Pamplona or Santander have exceeded their normal number of rainy days for the month of March by half a month, although not yet the accumulated precipitation. In Santander, although the normal number of rainy days has been exceeded, the accumulated precipitation is much lower than its average, as is happening this month throughout the Cantabrian coast and the northwest of the Spanish mainland.

Below its historical average

Paradoxically, wet Spain is this month being relatively the driest in 2025 in some areas. Accustomed to receiving more rain in other years, in mid-March they are still far from their normal values and much more far from breaking any record. Galicia and Asturias are even far from reaching their average values, and to a lesser extent also Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa. The explanation lies in the blocking anticyclone over the British Isles that makes the squalls pass further south than usual.

These below-normal values in Galicia and the Cantabrian coast mean that, despite being a very rainy March, record values were not reached in Spain as a whole. The 97mm of rain accumulated throughout the country between 1 and 16 March are far from the 135mm reached in the first half of March 2018, according to statements by Aemet spokesman Rubén del Campo, reported by Europa Press. Even so, they are 64% more than what usually rains in a full month of March.

Water reserves in reservoirs

The result of the heavy rains in March can be seen in the increase in reservoir water reserves in Spain. Water reservoirs in the country as a whole are at 66% of their total capacity, including hydroelectric reservoirs, five points higher than last week. The reservoirs for consumptive use, i.e. for human and agricultural use, are at 61%, fourteen percentage points higher than last year at the same time, and four points above the average for the last decade in March.

Methodology

For the preparation of the calculations in this report, the rainfall data correspond to the stations closest to the city centres with statistics of normal values, extreme values and daily values published in the public data of Spain's state weather agency, Aemet. Therefore, for example, the values for Madrid are those of the Madrid Retiro station and those of the Barcelona Fabra station in the case of Barcelona. The average or normal values correspond to the reference period 1981-2010, the record or extreme values vary according to the age of each measuring station. The values of negligible rainfall have been counted as rainy days, although without adding any millimetres of water.

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