Windy weather

Palm trees under power lines tossed in the wind during yesterday's power outage

The windy weather was strongly felt on La Gomera yesterday. In Valle Gran Rey the electricity went just before 4pm and the outage lasted until it became dark at 7pm. A large area of high pressure in the central Atlantic is bordering low pressure over North Africa and the resulting tighter isobars are causing strong winds and gales at times over the Canary Islands. This weather pattern is set to continue until Saturday and there are warnings of strong north-easterly winds, at times veering northerly, occasionally reaching gale force with gusts of 70 km/h. There's another warning of 3-4m seas, especially on exposed coasts.

Overall nothing dramatic or unusual for this time of the year, but always bear in mind that the steep mountainsides and ravines of La Gomera often exacerbate the situation, creating additional local turbulance. Sometimes under the shelter of a mountain there's only a breeze felt of the wind and a few dozen yards further on it can blow a brutal gale at the same time.