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When 2025 threatened to become one of the hottest years on record, there was one final twist in the storyline. December 24 and 25 will become the coldest Christmas in 15 yearsas confirmed by the forecasts of the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet).
We have to go back to 2010 to find such a low average temperature at this time of year, Aemet points out on its social networks. The trend, on the contrary, is towards increasingly mild wintersespecially since the beginning of the 21st century.
Thus, among other significant data, the last decade recorded the smallest number of cold waves in the historical series in Spain, which began to be counted since the 1960s. If traditionally we give a wave of these characteristics By winter 2024, it has become the fifth grade without any, as well as 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020.
We actually have to go back to 2005 to see a truly harsh winter in our country. That year they were concatenated 34 days of cold snapmore than a month with cold temperatures well below the historical average. But this is an exception, since the maxims have tended to “become autumnal‘, reaching values even typical of spring.
So last winter save an average temperature of 7.8 ºC in the Spanish peninsula, 1.2ºC above average of the reference period 1991-2020. It thus became the fifth hottest since this century. You don’t have to go far to find historical documents: they have been those of 2019-2020 and those of 2023-2024.
And the reality is that this month of December once again foreshadowed a warm anomaly. “Most of the time there was temperatures above normal“, taking the period 1991-2020 as a reference,” confirmed Aemet. However, a significant atmospheric change facilitated the change in trend.
If we stick to the Christmas Eve and Christmas Eve days (December 24 and 25) and compare the temperatures predicted for 2025 with those recorded since 1950, we can also say that these will be the coldest Christmas Eve and Christmas days in all of Spain since 2010. pic.twitter.com/hoOGUvDiq7
– AEMET (@AEMET_Esp) December 23, 2025
This is the now famous “Scandinavian blockade”, the formation of a large anticyclone over northern Europe which modifies the circulation of the jet stream, or polar throw. This facilitates cold and humid air masses coming from both the North Atlantic from the continental northeast (Siberia) reach the Iberian Peninsula and the archipelagos.
So after temperatures plummet on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day begins with frost and snow in the north of the peninsula. A dozen peninsular capitals, including Madrid, will not exceed the five degrees. Segovia and Lugo will be three. It will rain, sometimes intensely, in the northeast and the Balearic Islands.
Very cold Christmases like those of 2025 will be less and less frequent.
– AEMET (@AEMET_Esp) December 23, 2025
Aemet recognizes that such a cold start to Christmas is an exceptional circumstance, especially compared to previous years. These temperatures are not common, they warn, and “they will become less and less frequent” because the average temperature tends to increase.
In this way, and even taking into account the cold anomaly, “the first week of Christmas is 2.1°C warmer than in the middle of the 20th century“, warn meteorologists. “It is not impossible but it seems very unlikely that we will be able to live Christmas as cold as in 1962“.
This year’s anniversaries recall a three-day snowfall in Barcelona, with 46 cm of snow turning into Rue Balmes at the edge of the ski slope.
However, Duncan Wingen, meteorologist at Weatherizedwarns that the situation which affects us is also intended to be lasting. “The European model predicts that The next three weeks will be cold in Spainwith temperatures lower than the average values of the dates”.
Thus, between December 29 and the eve of the Three Kings “there will be anomalies of -1 to -3 ºC throughout the peninsula and the Balearic Islandswith deviations from the average of up to -6 ºC in the Pyrenees.
Anomalies will continue between January 5 and 12 1ºC below average. “Even if this situation does not necessarily lead to a cold snap, it does imply that snowfall could be frequent,” he concludes.
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