We need a storm…but rain before lightning!
August 27, 2012 at 10:57 am | Posted in General | Leave a comment
Apart from wet fog that has briefly dampened the ground on a couple of occasions, it has been completely dry around here since May 20th, a total of 99 days including today. This is not a record, far from it. There was a period in the ’90s when well-established trees were dying, and the local river was just a trickle and you could walk to Torremolinos and beyond along the beach. Nevertheless the vegetation is tinder dry and the smallest spark can start a fire. The last 3 days, with maximum temperatures above 36 and relative humidity readings below 20%, have caused a few worries for those with properties in the hilly outskirts ol Malaga. The last time it was hot and very dry, a fortnight ago, there was a big, but short-lived, blaze around Calahonda. Fortunately, temperatures have now dropped and humidity levels have risen. What of the future? There is no immediate sign of a return to hot weather, that’s the good news; but there is no obvious sign of rain arriving. Over the coming weeks, as autumn becomes established in northern Europe, there will be weather systems encroaching southeastwards over Spain and eventually rain will fall. What we don’t want is for the air to destabilise with thunderstorms breaking out with very little rain. In these situations, not uncommon in California, lightning strikes cause numerous wild fires with ensuing devastation. We don’t mind the thunderstorms, but hopefully this year they’ll occur AFTER the ground has had a good soaking!,
Why is the sea so cold this summer?
July 9, 2012 at 3:21 pm | Posted in General | Leave a comment
There have been few days this year when the sea has been warm enough for a pleasant swim. It has heated a shade today but now jellyfish have prevented bathing! From a meteorological point of view the low sea temperatures are interesting. It looks as if the poor weather that has plagued northwest Europe is partially responsible for the chilly waters off Malaga. The weather systems crossing the Atlantic are further south than normal but on the southern flank of the depressions the sea level pressure is higher than average. The usual Iberian heat ‘low’ combined with high pressure off the Portuguese coast has led to a stronger than normal northwest wind blowing towards the Straits of Gibraltar. This has probably enhanced the Portuguese Sea Current that runs south along the coast, and, combined with upwellings, have caused several weeks of abnormally low sea temperatures around Tarife (pictured above). Values have regularly been around 16 or 17 Celsius, similar to figures experienced by bathers off Ostend and Brighton!. The feed of cold water eastwards into the Mediterranean and along to Malaga will probably be cut off to some extent later this month, but for sure, there will be further upwellings of cold water. Those upwellings could ascend from depths of 200 metres and if that happens it will be cold, perhaps as low as 14 or 15 Celsius on the beach with sea fog!! There is some, though, amongst the science community that think global warming will lead to generally lower sea temperatures in coastal areas of the west Mediterranean…and presumably more jellyfish! .
When will the heatwave end?
June 12, 2012 at 10:56 am | Posted in General | Leave a comment
So far this month the temperature is running about 2 degrees above average and the last 5 days have seen highs above 30. However, it’s the nights that have been so warm. At least last night the temperature fell to 20 but even that’s too warm. So why is it happening? Normally at this time of year there is mobility from west to east, or more accurately southwest to northeast, across the Atlantic to the northwest of the British Isles. Spain usually lies under an ill-defined area of high pressure which after a while evolves into a weak low pressure area due to heating of the land mass, the classic ‘Spanish Low.’ The heat differential between the sea and land produces the daily sea breezes and the nightly land breezes. This June has been different. The tracking of weather systems across the Atlantic has been much further south than normal and has led to some awful wreather in parts of northwest Europe. Weak cold fronts, often only noticed in this area by an increase of wind strength or a change of wind direction, have crossed southern Spain more frequently than average this month and pressure rises behind the fronts have led to stronger northwesterly winds than normal thus inhibiting sea breeze development. The added ‘foehn’ effect created by the coastal sierras has also put 2 or 3 degrees on to the daily maxima. Short-term, a change is on the way with the northwesterlies weakening. Unfortunately, there has been an upwelling of low sea temperatures, so when the sea breezes arrive it will feel cold on the beaches. There is a chance tomorrow, but more likely on Thursday, that sea fog will be brought on to the coast and afternoon temperatures may be as low as 16 or 17! From the frying pan to the fridge!!
The Friendly Sea Breeze
May 27, 2012 at 10:28 am | Posted in General | Leave a comment
The end of May and the beginning of June are the times of year when the sea breeze in Malaga is often most pronounced. The last 2 days have proved the point. Yesterday it looked as if a land breeze would prevail and the temperature was projected to rise to between 30 and 33. As it happened, the temperature near the beach staggered up to 24 with a weak land breeze before a late morning sea breeze abruptly lowered the temperature to between 18 and 21 where it remained for the rest of the day. It was a different story at Malaga Airport, a mere 2 km from the coast. While afternoon beach visitors were shivering with temperatures hovering around 19, those exiting the terminal building at the Airport were experiencing values close to 30 and the maximum for the day was 31.5! After a chilly evening near the beach, the temperature rapidly rose to 25 at midnight and remained close to 25 into the early hours of Sunday. The minimum temperature on Saturday night was 4 degrees higher than the Saturday afternoon temperature. Can you wonder why the siesta is so popular!! Anyway, it’s even worse today. The temperature rose to 28 at 1125 but 25 minutes later it was 18!! This afternoon should be cool but tonight….who knows!
Worst day of the ‘Winter’
April 29, 2012 at 2:21 pm | Posted in General | Leave a commentTags: cold, skiiing, snow, wettest, winter
Last week we had temperatures in the mid 20s and out of the wind it felt very warm, unusually so for April. Now this! At the time of writing we have had over 25mm of rain (the wettest day since November) and since ‘sunrise’ the temperature has barely risen above 12C. There were no days like this during December, the 16th of January was similar to today, and although Febuary had some colder days early in the month at least it was sunny!! To make matters worse, sea temperatures are lower than through the winter. Up in the mountains it has been snowing steadily through the day and there’s a good fresh layer of snow at the resorts. Good news for the ski companies maybe? But no, operations closed down on 15th April and skiiing has ceased!!
A good day for photography
April 15, 2012 at 10:50 am | Posted in General | Leave a comment
There is always something good about the weather during April. It’s just a case of using it in the best way. Yesterday, was good for picturing miserable people struggling against the wind under cloudy skies in the car park at Plaza Major. Today is a much more jolly day for snapping, although it’s decidedly chilly in the shade. The main feature, though, is that the air is incredibly clear. Looking at the isobar chart, the 1012 millibar line, that passes through here at the moment, can be followed north through Spain, across Biscay, over northwest France, through the Netherlands, up the west coast of Norway before turning right across northern Finland. Webcam images from Kaamasmukk in northern Finland show weather conditions not too different from our own. Plenty of sunshine, very clear air BUT, there’s snow on the ground and the temperature is only minus 3!!
Useless Weather
March 25, 2012 at 12:39 pm | Posted in General | Leave a commentTags: chilly, cloudy, voters
It doesn’t really get much worse than this in March, at least not for a prolonged period. The cause….high pressure over northwest Europe. While this continues to give summer-like weather to much of France and the British Isles, we will suffer with cloud and a chilly breeze off the sea. It would be better if it rained. The few drops that fell yesterday did little to alleviate the ‘drought’ although over the next few days we may become more fortunate. Whatever, it’s pretty depressing weather at the moment and you can be absolutely sure who the voters will blame!!
Temperature trivia
March 11, 2012 at 3:41 pm | Posted in General | Leave a commentTags: breeze, march, sea, temperature
The breeze is blowing in from the sea again and the temperature is struggling to rise above 15 Celsius. March does seem to be the most difficult month to get the temperature forecasts correct, not helped this year by a lower than average sea temperature. Once the sea breeze has arrived that’s it for the day for anyone sitting on the beach. It’s too cold while the sea temperature remains around 14, and even at the end of the month when values may reach 16 or 17, just sitting on the beach is not a pleasant option. There are 2 weather situations that nullify the sea breeze at this time of year. A strong ridge of high pressure over, or to the best of Portugal, may produce a northwest wind that lasts all day and results in temperatures rising into the low to mid 20s. The other situation is where there is little obvious wind flow but the air above the surface slowly warms. On occasions that may result in just a very light sea breeze but with air above continuing to mix in with sea air as it travels up the beach. When this happens the afternoon temperature 20 metres up the beach may be 4 or 5 degrees warmer than right by the sea. There is a good chance that this will happen at least once during the coming week. Can it be predicted? Er…..no!
Unexpected rain, but we’ll take it!
February 19, 2012 at 1:00 pm | Posted in General | Leave a comment
The rain that fell the other morning was somewhat unexpected and was caused by a small pool of cold air in the middle atmosphere, around 3000 to 5000 metres above sea level. This ‘cold pool’ would have gone largely unnoticed if it had tracked westwards across northern Andalucia, but with its centre over the sea it managed to engage both moisture and ‘warmth’ even though the sea temperaturee is only 14 Celsius. Anyway, the result was a thoroughly unpleasant day with temperatures hovering around 8 or 9 Celsius with a chilly northwest wind. If there had not been a brief change of wind direction to the south late in the day, and a 4 degree rise in temperature, it would have been one of the coldest February days for several years, and talking of ‘would have beens’ if those thunderstorms that rumbled along over the sea on Friday morning had been further north there may have been 30 millimetres of rain rather than the meagre 3 millimetres that we received!
Was that ice on the bird bath?
February 12, 2012 at 12:45 pm | Posted in General | Leave a commentTags: cold, dry, freezing, humidity, ice
There are now signs of this remarkable spell of dry and cold weather coming to an end. The relative humidity has been down to 10% with dew points regularly between minus 10 and minus 20 Celsius. Anyone that has put washing on the line will have noticed that one end of the line is dry before the other end has been pegged. There have also been some other unusual features. Although air temperatures have been above freezing in Malaga, just, ground temperatures have fallen below freezing. Puddles have all but disappeared but water in the bird bath has frozen aided by the low wet-bulb temperature. This is the temperature one feels when one’s skin is wet and is exposed to moving air and is used to calculate the relative humidity and dew point. As an aside, the lowest air temperatures observed in the Malaga area over the last few days have been 1.8C here and 0.0C at the Airport. Further afield, minus 2 was recorded in Murcia, minus 6 in Cordoba, and minus 10 in Granada.
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