A September heatwave is coming

Summer is refusing to leave. It's Sunday, 20 September. Thirty-one degrees. Air quality: 60 (Moderate). Here's what you need to know.

🗞️ INTENSE HEAT RETURNS, AND IPMA SAYS A HEATWAVE IS LIKELY

Portugal is heating up again, and this time the forecasters are using the word heatwave. IPMA, the national weather institute, has placed nine districts under a yellow warning, including Lisbon, and says there is a high probability the country will meet the formal criteria for a heatwave over the coming days.

The warning covers Lisbon, Coimbra and Leiria from Saturday, extended to Setúbal, Santarém, Aveiro, Porto, Braga and Viana do Castelo on Sunday, and it stays in force until at least Monday evening. Temperatures will climb above 30°C across the mainland, and in the hottest spots, the Alentejo and the Tagus Valley, they could approach 38°C. Nights will stay warm too, above 20°C in parts of the interior and the eastern Algarve, which is the part that makes a heatwave wearing: your home does not cool down overnight.

In Lisbon specifically, today and tomorrow sit around 31°C, but the city keeps climbing into midweek, with Monday to Wednesday the peak and highs reaching 34°C before it eases off towards the weekend. Nowhere near the 44°C some inland areas hit in July, but well above what mid-September should be.

The technical definition is worth knowing, because it is why "heatwave" is not just a dramatic word here. IPMA classes it as a heatwave when, over six consecutive days, the daily maximum runs 5°C above the seasonal average. September's averages are lower than July's, so even though these temperatures are milder than the 38-plus red-warning days earlier this summer, they are far enough above normal for the time of year to qualify. The cause is an anticyclone parked north of the Azores, dragging hot, dry continental air across the Iberian Peninsula.

For anyone in Lisbon, the practical advice is the familiar late-summer script, but it matters more when the nights stay warm. Drink more water than you think you need, keep blinds and windows shut through the hottest part of the day and open them at night, avoid the midday sun, and check on older neighbours, who are most at risk when the heat does not let up after dark. It is also, inevitably, a wildfire concern: hot, dry, continental air after a brutal fire season is exactly the combination the country has been dreading, so if you are heading out of the city, mind any local fire warnings.

Bottom line: summer is not done. A likely heatwave is settling in from now into midweek, milder than July's extremes but longer and stickier, so pace yourself, hydrate, and keep an eye on the vulnerable people around you.

⚡ QUICK HITS

Diesel is about to hit an all-time record high in Portugal. After weeks of climbing, diesel is set to reach its highest price ever this coming week, pushing towards €2.15 a litre, keeping the fuel squeeze that has driven protests and a government cost-of-living package right at the top of the agenda. Portugal, meanwhile, has joined five other EU countries, including Germany, Italy and Spain, in pressing Brussels for an extraordinary windfall tax on energy companies' profits, to be discussed at a finance ministers' meeting in the coming days. The argument is that oil and gas firms are booking outsized profits from the war-driven price spikes while ordinary drivers pay record prices at the pump. Whether it goes anywhere is another matter, but it is a sign the political heat over fuel is not cooling even as the government insists it has done what it can.

Portugal's flu vaccine campaign starts on 30 September, and it now covers young children. The autumn and winter campaign runs to the end of March, and the headline change this year is that children aged two to four can get the flu vaccine free for the first time, at SNS health centres and authorised clinics. For expats, the practical points: the free vaccine is targeted at eligible groups, over-60s, pregnant women, healthcare workers, people with certain health conditions, and now young children, and adults aged 18 to 59 with qualifying conditions can now get it at participating pharmacies rather than a health centre. The Covid-19 booster campaign starts the same day, with its recommended age threshold rising from 60 to 70. If you or your kids are eligible, it is worth booking early rather than waiting for the winter rush.

Portugal's journalists' union has called for a boycott of the PM's no-questions press events. The Journalists' Union (SJ) is urging news outlets to stop sending reporters to Prime Minister Luís Montenegro's public statements when he refuses to take questions afterwards, a practice it says has become his trademark. Its argument is blunt: broadcasting a statement nobody is allowed to challenge is not journalism but propaganda, and the outlet "might as well send out a press release." The union pointedly invoked the 1974 Carnation Revolution, noting that even Salgueiro Maia, mid-coup during the siege of the Carmo Barracks, stopped to answer the press for fourteen minutes, so a modern prime minister could manage the same courtesy. It is a sharp escalation in the friction between the government and the media, and it lands as Montenegro's popularity slides despite the economy's strong numbers on paper.

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🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY

FORNO D'ORO (RATO)

If Friday's Come Prima put you in the mood for Italian, here is the pizza half of the same story, though this one is a plan for tomorrow: Forno d'Oro is closed on Sundays. It is chef Tanka Sapkota's dedicated pizzeria, and this week it broke into the top 50 of the 50 Top Pizza World guide for the first time, landing at 49th, up twelve places from last year's 61st, and the only Portuguese restaurant on the list.

The whole place is built around the wood-fired oven, the forno d'oro, or "golden oven", tiled in gold leaf and imported from Naples, that gives it its name. It runs at around 450°C, cooking each pizza in under a minute in the proper Neapolitan style, on a dough left to ferment for 36 hours. That slow-fermented base, blistered and light, is what the ranking is really rewarding. Beyond pizza there is fresh pasta and a strong wine and beer list, and, this being a Sapkota restaurant, truffle when it is in season.

It is open Monday to Saturday, dinner every night plus lunch from Tuesday, and closed Sundays. It gets busy, and probably will be even busier with this new ranking, so booking is the safe move.

→ Find them here ←

Insider tip: have someone in your group order the classic Neapolitan margherita. It is the pizza that earns a place on a world-50 list or loses it, the truest test of the dough and the oven.

📅 WHAT'S ON

See you tomorrow morning.

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