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With April winding down, plenty of people in Spain are already casting an eye towards May, and specifically the long weekend that kicks things off. Labour Day on May 1 falls on a Friday this year, making it a three-day break, and for many that means travel plans, so the weather forecast matters.

 

While Spain's official meteorological agency Aemet is keeping its cards close to its chest for now, Jorge Rey has already offered up his prediction. Rey is a young forecaster from Burgos who became something of a household name after apparently predicting the devastating Filomena snowstorm of 2021. He uses a traditional method known as cabañuelas, which doesn't have a scientific basis but has earned him a significant following across Spain.

 

For the May 1 to 3 bank holiday weekend, Rey is predicting persistent rain in Galicia and along the Cantabrian coast in the north, with a lot of cloud cover expected to spread across central Spain and the possibility of isolated showers there too.

 

The south is looking milder, and the Mediterranean coast and eastern Spain should see largely stable conditions.

 

Looking further into May, Rey expects much of the same pattern to continue, with rain coming in from the west and affecting areas including Extremadura and western Andalucia, while the Mediterranean stays largely settled.

 

As the weekend of May 9 and 10 approaches, he predicts storms pushing into central Spain, touching the Iberian System, Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha.

 

From around May 13, however, he expects things to calm right down again, with temperatures rising across central Spain.

 

The overall picture for the month, according to Rey, is one of rain fronts arriving from the west while the south and east enjoy relative stability and generally warm conditions, which broadly aligns with the early indications coming from Aemet too.