Divers off Almuñecar have captured images of a blue shark, known locally as a tintorera, swimming near the surface in daylight. Footage from last Sunday comes from Open Water La Herradura, a dive firm that runs authorised marine wildlife trips on Granada’s Costa Tropical.

Big pelagic animals are turning up more often in these waters. This latest clip, shown on national TV station Telecinco, shows a sleek open-ocean hunter in conditions that usually keep it out of sight.

What the footage shows

Open Water La Herradura diving school recorded the animal in open water, not in a packed bathing zone. Staff say the outing was under a permit from Spain’s Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), with professionals in charge and the usual rules applied.

Blue sharks already use the Granada coast. Crews from the same company say climate change is also bringing in other species that were once far harder to find here. Similar wildlife trips from the firm have previously put fin whales on camera off La Herradura and Torrox.

Why a daytime surface swim is unusual

Aula del Mar at the University of Granada describes the blue shark as an open-water species that can reach four metres. It has a slim body, a long pointed snout, large eyes and serrated triangular teeth in the upper jaw.

These sharks roam thousands of kilometres. Night work at 60 to 300 metres is their usual pattern, which is why a shallow daytime pass off Almuñecar caught people’s attention. Fish and molluscs make up most of the diet, so attacks on marine mammals or seabirds are not the norm.

Mediterranean blue sharks are in a worse state than the global stock. IUCN lists the species as Near Threatened worldwide and Critically Endangered in the Mediterranean, mainly because of fishing.

No reason to panic on the sand

Open Water La Herradura is clear that a tintorera in the Med does not equal danger for holidaymakers. It is part of the local sea, and this species needs protection more than it needs panic.

If one appears, stay calm, keep a sensible gap and do not touch, chase or try to “help” it. Anyone already in the water should move away slowly and leave the sea if that feels safer.

Costa Tropical has seen other large sharks this year. A shortfin mako was reported several miles off Almuñecar in April, well away from swimming areas. A wider look at where sharks turn up around Spain puts this sighting in context rather than treating it as a freak event.

Spain has opened September like July again, and AEMET, the Spanish official meteorological service, says that the midsummer blast still has several days left in it. The most probable picture from the state weather service keeps the heat going through this weekend and into the start of next week, before a wider cool-down becomes more likely from Tuesday and Wednesday.

Weekend still feels like high summer

Fifteen autonomous communities in Spain have been carrying high-temperature warnings, with orange alerts covering parts of Andalucia, Aragon, Castilla y Leon, Castilla-La Mancha, Catalonia, Extremadura, Madrid, Navarra, the Basque Country and La Rioja. Provinces on that list include Cordoba, Jaen, Sevilla, Huesca, Teruel, Zaragoza, Avila, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Toledo, Barcelona, Lleida, Tarragona, Badajoz and Caceres. Extra yellow warnings have also been out for spots in Asturias, Cantabria, Galicia, Murcia, the Valencian Community and Guipuzcoa in the Basque Country.

04/09 12:00 AVISOS HOY Y MAÑANA | España: temperaturas máximas, tormentas, lluvias y costeros. Nivel máximo de aviso: naranja.
Actualizaciones en https://t.co/BLdoSsO2Qv pic.twitter.com/qPBgw4SiLN

— AEMET (@AEMET_Esp) September 4, 2026

Afternoon peaks will be nearing 40ºC in the Ebro valley, the northeast basins and the river valleys of the southwest. A few inland pockets could brush 44ºC in the hottest hours. Nights give little breather: 24ºC or 25ºC after dark in the south-west of the country, around 22ºC in the north-east, and tropical nights above 20ºC across much of the south, the Mediterranean and those same north-east hollows. Canary Island nights may stay sticky too.

Saturday holds those 40ºC pockets. Sunday should bring a clearer dip in the western half, especially Galicia, while 39ºC to 40ºC can still hang on in the Ebro valley and the southwest river corridors. Eastern Cantabria may even move up a notch.

Dana slides in with rain for Galicia and western Cantabria

A DANA low-pressure front bringing intense rain is moving in from the southwest on the other half of the weekend. Cloud will thicken first over the western third, and isolated heavy showers or thunderstorms look most likely in Galicia and western Cantabria on Saturday. Rain chances ease on Sunday as that system drifts away. Low cloud, mist and fog banks can form on the Galicia and Asturias coasts, around Alboran and the Strait of Gibraltar.

Canary Island skies will stay a mix of medium and high cloud, with only a slim chance of isolated showers over higher ground. This is not a country-wide washout, just a messy split: baking interiors in the east and south-west, bumpier skies in the north-west.

Tuesday and Wednesday look like the turning point

AEMET’s working forecast is a step-by-step slide from the west, then a more general fall around Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. Readings after that should be closer to a normal September day. Early next week can still run too hot in the south-west and the interior of the eastern third, so nobody should bin the fans just yet.

Forecasters want people checking updates, because the exact track of September storms can shuffle both the heat and the rain. Anyone with outdoor work, a long drive or a packed terrace this weekend should treat Saturday and Sunday as summer, then watch AEMET’s warning map from Monday night. Official notes live on AEMET’s featured forecast page, and Europe-wide alerts are on Meteoalarm.

The sand at Cala Major may be free to everyone, but the luxury of laying on a sunbed isn’t, especially with the extortionate prices some locations are charging and that residents are calling ‘absurd’. A full day’s rental of two premium sunbeds, a parasol and a safe has reached €125, and locals say the setup was never really built with them in mind.

Two loungers, a parasol and a safe: how the €125 adds up

A premium sunbed at Cala Major beach in Palma now costs €45 on its own, so two side by side come to €90 before anything else is added. A parasol costs a further €30, and a safe for valuables takes the full package to €125 for a single day.

On most stretches of Spain’s coastline, a standard sunbed without the higher-end thicker mattresses and upgraded umbrellas can usually still be hired for €10. But for many Balearic locals, the premium price tag has become a symbol of who Mallorca’s most popular beaches are really being designed for. 

Residents say the prices are simply ‘not for Spaniards’ 

The Sant Agustí and Cala Major Residents’ Association has objected formally to the new rates, calling them excessive. It accepts that the premium loungers come with thicker mattresses and a sturdier parasol than the standard option, but says that difference does little to soften the impact on locals’ pockets.

“They are not aimed at Spanish residents,” the association said, turning what might have been a routine price rise into a wider argument about who Mallorca’s coastline is really built for now. Some residents said they are sticking to taking their own towels and cheap store-bought parasols rather than pay for a spot on a beach many feel is increasingly built around visitors with more money to spend. 

A new concession pushed the price past last year’s overcharge 

The rise has not been gradual. A comparable premium set-up on Palma’s beaches cost around €70 last year, and even that price was controversial. In September 2025, the conservation group GOB accused the previous operator at Cala Major of charging almost three times its authorised rate for a similar package.

This year is different though. Under a fresh four-year concession awarded to the operator Vigiosi SL, worth €370,000 a year, €125 is not an overcharge but the officially agreed price. A single premium lounger has risen from €30 to €45, and even the standard lounger is up from €6 in 2019 to €10 now.

Fewer loungers on a beach that keeps getting pricier

The price rise has coincided with fewer places to put a towel down in the first place. Palma’s town hall has cut the number of loungers permitted at Cala Major to 250, part of a wider reduction of roughly 1,000 across the city’s beaches. Officials say the cuts follow sand loss along the coastline, with a council spokesperson explaining that every affected beach is losing sand and needs its resting areas reorganised as a result.

For residents, the combination of shrinking capacity and rising premium prices reinforces the general consensus around overtourism and the idea that the public beaches on their own doorsteps are increasingly catering to visitors who can pay, while those on a budget are left choosing between a €10 lounger or nothing at all.