What weather to expect when you visit Spain in February?
As we have discussed previously, the weather in Spain is as diverse as the country itself, with blazing hot summers and, in some places, freezing cold winters, so for the best of both worlds, how about visiting Spain in February?
Of course it depends on which part of Spain you plan to visit because the weather, and average temperatures, varies wildly from each region, and in this article we look at two opposite ends of the country.
The southernmost part of Spain is by far the warmest area, with the most amount of sunshine during any part of the year, and Andalusia in February enjoys an average temperature of around 15 degrees (59f) compared to the Northern part of Spain, which is much wetter during the winter with average temperatures of 10 degrees but much colder at night, and a rainfall average of 67mm compared to a surprisingly high 60mm in the south.
Yes, it does rain in Spain!
Many people wrongly think that the “rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain” as the saying goes, but although the north of the region, especially when one ventures along the coast to Galicia, generally has a lot more rainfall than the south.
In the case of any town or city in the south, for example Malaga, the rain in February comes as a surprise to early bird visitors from northern Europe. This is largely due to the fact that although the winters are short and spring soon arrives in February, there are rainy spells, and just like January, the Atlantic weather fronts can bring several hours of rain to the Costa Del Sol.
This is often due to low atmospheric pressure over the Mediterranean Sea, including North Africa, which keeps warmer weather from arriving. As the spring arrives, the land gets hotter, even with the relatively low angle of the sun at this point in the year, but the sea stays cool.
There are several towns and villages in Andalucia which are lovely at this time of year, despite the occasional rain, however when it rains in Spain it POURS, and recent flash flooding in both the south, and more northern areas such as the normally dry area of Murcia, demonstrate quite strongly, the process of evaporation of the sea in the hot summer, which as anyone who went to school will now, sea water that evaporates into the atmosphere, must at some point, come down again, and it REALLY comes down, so if you are in Spain during a rainstorm, safety is paramount and you should not attempt to go out into it, nor should you drive in flood waters.
Northern Spain.
The north of the country is a very different place, both from a topographical point of view, and from a climatic one, especially when one moves away from the warm Mediterranean coast and up to the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic coast.
Cities such as Bilbao in the Basque country enjoy a milder climate than their cousins in the south, and this also goes for delightful places such as San Sebastian or Santander, the embarkation point of the Ferry from the UK.
For the tourist, the cost of staying in the north rises quite high in comparison to places in the south such as Fuengirola, Nerja or Malaga, and it is a favoured destination for many people from other parts of Spain, such as Madrid, who really cannot stand the baking heat of summer. It’s certainly a misnomer than many foreigners think the Spanish enjoy the sun, as many of them do not, and when its approaching 50 degrees in Seville in the summer, the temptation to board a plane to the north is overwhelming, if only to escape the heat!
Spain is for sure, a diverse and interesting place and if you spend some time researching the ideal weather for what you want to do whilst in the country, you can be assured of a very pleasant holiday indeed.