Thursday, January 11, 2007
High winds and low visibility in the Canaries
The Canary Islands are on "yellow alert" for high winds, with the situation extended until tomorrow.
We've been so lucky - well, if you're a tourist - over the Christmas, New Year and Los Reyes season, in that it has been very warm for the time of year and we've had no rain mucking up plans for days or nights out. Of course, we've also not had any snow on Teide this year, which, as well as making it look pretty, the saying goes that if there is snow up there at year end, then there will be a good harvest. Farmers are now beginning to complain that we have not had enough rain this winter.
Yesterday, the temperatures dropped - it's still 15 degrees here in the "cold north" and was 22 degrees in the south earlier - and, though I haven't yet noticed them in this corner of Tenerife, the winds did get up "on all islands at all levels" today.
Enough, to remove a few branches off trees, rubbish containers were blown about in Gran Canaria, some boats sank in the port of Puerto del Rosario, Fuerteventura, the port in Corralejo was closed and, here in Tenerife, a few cones were displaced from the TF1 motorway, while a fence was downed in the Valle de San Lorenzo.
The reduction in visibility - to 3,000 meters - is due to the presence, yet again, of calima, though this is only likely to affect air traffic. But the farmers look to be getting their wish: clouds could bring light to moderate rains to high ground on all islands.
All that said, I had been given to understand that yellow alert was no alert, i.e. that it is not something to bother the public with, or to worry about. The possible reason for the local press to run these stories is, they say, that the meteorologists do not discount raising the alert to orange level, should the wind speed pass 70 kmph.
Follow the evolution of the weather via METEOSAT
El Centro Meteorológico en Canarias prevé que la actual situación de alerta se extienda hasta mañana
Labels: Tenerife Weather
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