IPMA is expected to raise the yellow warning to orange by Monday due to persistent hot weather.
Low humidity, moderate wind and high temperatures increase the risk of fire: vigilance and prevention are required.
The hot weather is set to worsen in the Madeira archipelago. A yellow warning is currently in effect due to persistently high maximum temperatures, but from Friday onwards the heat will intensify and alert and surveillance levels will increase, particularly due to the risk of fires.
According to Vitor Prior, director of the Funchal Observatory of the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA), thermometers are expected to rise to 33ºC from Friday onwards, with maximum temperatures expected to remain at this level until Monday. The nights will be tropical, with thermometers not dropping below 20ºC in urban areas located on the coast.
As such, it is very likely that IPMA will update the weather warnings in the next few hours, raising them to orange, the second most serious on a scale of four, due to the persistence of high maximum temperature values, between Friday and Monday, in this case, above 30 ºC.
The region is being affected by a hot and dry tropical air mass in this part of the Atlantic. “The weather in the Madeira Archipelago will continue to be affected by a hot and dry tropical air mass over the next eight days, with maximum temperatures ranging between 27 and 31 ºC and, with some persistence, low relative humidity (below 30%), especially above intermediate altitudes”