IN case you were in any doubt, October 2022 has not only become the hottest October on record but was also exceptionally dry with 33% less rainfall than normal.
According to figures released by the state meteorological agency, AEMET, the average temperature in the Valencia region in October was 19.2 °C, which is 2.9 °C higher than the climate reference of 16.3ºC. The larger number of orange and red lines on the graph below show how temperatures have been increasing over the past few years.
Unprecedented
The unseasonably warm October weather comes at the end of a long, hot summer which also saw terrifying forest fires in different parts of the region. According to AEMET: “There is no precedent for an October as warm as the one just ended. Persistently warm anomalies have been recorded since May. Every month since May has been extremely warm, with the exception of September, which was very warm. Many observatories have exceeded their historical record of average monthly temperature, among them those of the provincial observatories of Alicante and Castelló de la Plana.”
The largest anomalies have been recorded inland to the north of the region, where the month had an average temperature more than 4 °C above the normal average, while on the coast, where there have been some easterly winds and breezes that have somewhat softened the temperatures, the anomalies in October have been around 2 °C above the norm.
With the October data, the first 10 months of 2022 are the warmest since at least 1950 in the Valencia Region, surpassing the same period in 2014 and 2001.
The graph below shows temperature anomalies in the region in the first 10 months of the year from 1950 and since 1997 the anomalies are practically all above the average temperature rather than below.
Rainfall
The accumulated rainfall for the month of October was 46.7 l/m², which is 33% lower than average. The graph below shows that, with the exception of 2018, rainfall in October has been well below average for the past decade.
The Valencia Report 
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