Why is it so rainy in Spain this year?

Those living in Spain will have noticed that the past year has been very rainy, not to mention lots of storms and the devastating floods in Valencia in October.

Valencia may have been one of the most widely reported floods in Spain over the last year, but there were also floods in Málaga, Madrid, Murcia and other places in Andalusia.

And the wet weather has continued into 2025 as well. Rubén del Campo, spokesperson for Spain's Aemet national weather agency, reported how the first four months of the 2025 - between January and April - were the eighth wettest on record since 1961, and the fifth wettest so far this century.

March stood out as a particularly wet month, with lots of storms meaning almost uninterrupted rain across much of the country for several weeks. It was actually the third rainiest March in the last 60 years.

"During that month, there were places where it rained three or even five times more than usual," Del Campo explained.

April also had plenty of rain and May is also proving to be a wet month as well. To those who are new to the country- no, this isn’t what Spain is usually like. In fact, in recent years we've become more accustomed to early heatwaves than incessant downpours.

So what’s going on?

According to meteorological experts from weather website El Tiempo.es, there are some explanations as to why there’s been so much rain.

This year there has been an increase in the presence of anticyclonic blocks in northern Europe.

“These prevent the normal passage of low-pressure areas north of the continent, which have been diverted southward, toward the Iberian Peninsula and the western Mediterranean”.

Jet streams which guide storms have also become more unpredictable, meandering along different paths than usual, they add.

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Some weather experts also believe it could be down La Niña - the meteorological phenomenon originating in the waters of the equatorial Pacific. This itself can cause more rainfall during the autumn and winter seasons.

Many people have attributed the rain to the fact that they feel this year has been much colder than normal. According to the experts though, it just seems colder because the last few years have been abnormally warm a lot earlier, and the fact that there's been so much rain.

In fact, the first four months of 2025 were the eighth warmest since 1961.

"Perhaps the problem is that we've had such extreme years that anything other than temperatures reaching 30C in January seems abnormal," Aemet's Rubén del Campo argued.

So what’s to come for the remainder of May? When will this wet weather come to an end in Spain?

According to AEMET, this week we will continue to experience unstable atmospheric conditions, "fuelled by the presence of cold air in the upper layers of the atmosphere". This could indicate storms in much of the peninsula, but more likely in the northwest and central parts of the country.

For the early part of the summer, meteorologists are predicting above-normal temperatures in Spain between May and July, particularly in the northern and eastern parts of the country, where there is a 50 to 70 percent chance that these months will be warmer than usual.

As for whether the rain will continue into the second half of May and the summer, it’s too early to say for certain but it looks like conditions will become more stable.

As a final note, it's worth remembering that all this rain is coming off the back of several years of severe drought, particularly in southern Spain and Catalonia. Much of Spain was in a long-term drought since the end of 2022 and the northeastern region experienced one of the worst situations in over 200 years.

In fact, in places like Barcelona, water restrictions have only just been lifted and the fountains switched back on this month.

So, while some places definitely didn’t need so much rainfall, others certainly did.

READ ALSO: Will all the recent rain prevent drought in Spain this summer?