Sunday, July 29, 2007
Tenerife: 106° F / 41° C in the shade
It seems such a "Terribly British" thing to keep harping on about the weather, but in my experience anyway, the preoccupation isn't merely confined to those nations who are only used to weather of the crappy variety.
Whenever I go to my local supermarket, you can be sure there will be some comment, if not lengthy conversation about the current state of it. Whilst the concerns of locals here in this agricultural valley normally revolve around the scenario of too much / not enough rain for the crop of the season, the other day, we were discussing the fact that what the weather reports say and what we feel, in relation to heat, seem to bear scant relation to one another.
This, of course, is because the official temperature readings are taken in the shade (we'd all managed to "blow up" a thermometer at some point too trying to get a "real" reading. Bunch of kids!) I also think that the north and south temperature readings in Tenerife are taken at the respective airports.
Vast open spaces with nice cooling breezes whipping through them.
Something the average house, poolside or sun-trap patio doesn't have. 
For most of the year in Tenerife, the south is hotter than the north. The latter usually has the vientos alisios (trade winds) cooling it and bringing along clouds. Only sometimes, in the hottest part of the year, around August usually (give or take a few days), the situation can get reversed.
Today, while at around 4:30 this afternoon, it was 91 °F / 33 °C in the south, in the north, it had reached 102 °F / 39 °C, having had 105° F / 41° C forecast for the hottest part of the day.
By 5:30 p.m., the situation was back to "normal", with the south clocking up 106° F / 41° C and the north dropping to a "cool" 100° F / 38 C!
Yes, curious thing, but as the sun starts to drop here, so do the winds (not that there has been much today to begin with) and, so the temperature can go up in the early evening, not dropping again until the early hours.
Today is definitely not a day to be without air-conditioning and merely reliant on a pathetic fan that bearly "recycles" the hot air. (Mind you, in winter, people in Tenerife bemoan the fact that pathetic fan heaters are ill equipped to deal with the "freezing" temperatures, that, in truth, seldom drop below 15° C.)
It's also one of those days when you'd love to take a cold shower to cool off too, but never mind frying an egg on the pavement, you could almost boil one in the sun-heated water that is coming out of the "cold" taps!
(Money saving ecological tip: do laundry and wash dishes during the hottest part of the afternoon in summer with machines on the "cold" setting to save energy. Your stuff gets a very hot wash too!)
Tenerife Island, the largest in the Canary Island archipelago, is approximately 50 miles (80 kilometers) long and 32 miles (54 kilometers) at its widest point. With Pico de Teide, its volcanic peak, rising 12,198 feet (3,718 meters) above the sea, Tenerife has the distinction of having the highest elevation in the Atlantic Ocean. The island has a surface area of 2,034 km² (785 sq.mi).
[Sources: Earth from Space and Wikipedia.]
Not huge, but with vast changes of height, landscape, etc., in the relatively small area, this is what causes some startling changes in climate.
It's actually fascinating how different the temperatures can be in different places. Not just north and south, but at lower and higher altitudes - again, the higher altitudes are generally cooler, until you get to the hottest part of the year when their inland location, away from the breezes, tends to trap the heat - and, even between different places just minutes away from each other.
Andy Williams, who also lives in the north of Tenerife, writes:
"Here in Tenerife the weather is a little strange. Yesterday, at my house, the temperature was 25C. I went off to the market (its about 10 minutes away on the motorway), and the temperature there was 36C there. After the market, I went of to Santa Cruz (another 15 minutes drive), and the temperature there was 42C. Phew, that's hot.
Anyway, we headed off back home, and the temperature began to drop. Within the space of 1 Km, the temperature dropped a staggering 9 degrees. Back home, the temperature was 26C. That's 16 degrees difference in temperature for two places 20 minutes drive from each other."
So when you want to know what the temperature is in Tenerife, it helps to know which bit, otherwise you could get a wide variety of answers. But, let's face it, that same variety is what gives us so much to talk about! :)
You can check north and south current weather and forecasts here
Labels: Tenerife Weather, Weather
