Updated weather warnings issued for Canary Islands

An additional status orange warning of very heavy downpours, thunderstorms and strong winds has been issued for the western Canary Islands a bit earlier today November 12th 2025 by the Spanish meteorological agency. In La Gomera the island's government has activated its emergency plan and asks to avoid travel and to stay away from all hiking trails, walks and unpaved forestry tracks. Ravines, valley floors and low lying areas should also be avoided due to the risk of flash flooding as rain accumulations of up to 30mm in just one hour can be expected.. Same applies to the other western Canary Islands of Tenerife, La Palma and El Hierro. The warnings are valid from lunchtime today until tomorrow afternoon. Status yellow warnings of thunderstorms and wind have also been issued. A heavy swell with large waves can als be expected. Gran Canaria will be under similar warnings tomorrow only while Fuerteventura and Lanzarote will come under yellow warning (see image above). Go to the Spanish meteorological service's (AEMET) official website in English for further detail.

All this is due to a large area of low pressure, presently around 980 hPa, situated NNW of the Canary Islands and off the WNW of the Iberian peninsula, named storm Claudia.

Please be aware that there is a high risk of rockfalls, which will remain for a couple of days once the rain has cleared away and the sun heats up the wet mountainsides.

Fred Olsen now offering service to Spanish mainland

The Fred. Olsen ferry company is now connecting the Canary Islands with Huelva on the Spanish mainland in competition with FRS-Iberica which sail the same route, previously operated by Naviera Armas ferries and still listed in their schedule. Queenie's Tenerife blog has more:

''Fred Olsen Express has launched a new triangular route to mainland Spain, with the collaboration of the Baleària shipping company and now links the port of Huelva with the two main ports of the Canary Islands, Puerto de la Luz on Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

This new route will be operated aboard the ship ‘Martín i Soler’, owned by Baleària. The ship is to depart the Puerto de la Luz, in Las Palmas, every Tuesday and Sunday, at 12 noon and will take 44 hours to reach its final destination the Andalusian port of Huelva, after a 4-hour stopover in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

The ship will set sail from the Peninsula on Fridays at 8:00p.m. and head to Gran Canaria where it will have a four-hour stopover then return to its moorings in Tenerife.

The route will offer various services including a restaurant, bar, shop, internet connection, outdoor areas, a children’s area and a pool as well as cabins and various seating options either tourist or superior.''

Earthquake felt in Tenerife and Gran Canaria

The red star shows the epicentre and the pointers indicate locations where the quake was reportedly felt

A 4.2 magnitude earthquake was felt his morning at 6.36am according to the Spanish National Geographic Institute (IGN). The institute's stations spread across the Canaries registered a seismic movement with its epicentre located in the Atlantic between the islands of Gran Canaria and Tenerife, at a depth of 14.3 kilometres.

The tremors which lasted about one minute were felt in several municipalities of both islands and some people there were woken up by the quake. According the National Geographic Institute’s records, the earthquake reached a peak magnitude of 4.6 within a few seconds of starting. Another three very minor quakes were detected in the same area at between 1.7 and 1.9 magnitude before the stronger one. There were no reports of any damage.

The sea area between these two islands experiences minor earthquakes very regularly and today's slightly stronger one would still be seen as part of normal seismic activity in this area, so please ignore any alarmist reports that some irresponsible media sources have published (e.g. The Express (UK) ran the sensationalist headline: ''TENERIFE EARTHQUAKE: Atlantic smashed by 4.2 magnitude quake near La Palma volcano''.) Yeah La Palma, where doom to 'smash' us all is supposedly brewing below the surface, had to be mentioned again. Sorry but the only word for that headline, and for the La Palma doomsday scenario hype of a few years ago, is BULLSHIT !

Cold spell in Canary Islands set to continue

Icicles on a special carnival edition Dorada beer bottle. Well, the ice wasn't  due to the weather...

The cold spell which lasted all week in the Canary Islands is set to continue well into the coming week. There was some snow in the mountains of Gran Canaria, and the peak of Tenerife's Mount Teide is wearing a white winter coat. Even lower areas of Lanzarote had a sprinkling of soft hail, leaving the black lava with a white dusting just briefly. The fresh to strong northerly winds are continuing to bring cold air down over the Canaries with some days a bit warmer than others, but generally the cold airflow with spells of scattered showers is set to continue according to forecasts. 
In La Gomera's mountains above 3.000 feet the temperature stayed in single figures all week and the lowest recorded at the weather station on the second-highest peak here, the Alto de Igualero at about 4.500 ft, was only 2ºC while the highest temperature there during the week just briefly reached 6.1ºC. It is a different story down by the sea in the southern resorts of La Gomera where the temperature can reach 20ºC, but only in sunny spots sheltered from the northerly wind which blows down from the cold mountain regions. Nights are colder than normally, too, but the sea temperature will be around 20ºC keeping it milder near coasts even at night and making an ice cold beer a feasible option.
Daily weather updates on top of right sidebar >

Dramatic video of ferry crashing into pier

The Naviera Armas ferry 'Volcan de Tamasite' crashed into a pier in port of Las Palmas on Gran Canaria last night after it had just left the inner harbour of Puerto de la Luz.

Thirteen passengers on board a ferry were injured when the large ferry slammed into a concrete quay at the port of Las Palmas. A spokesperson for Naviera Armas, the Canary Islands company that operates the ferry, said that a "loss of electrical power" caused the accident. Emergency services said five of the injured were taken to hospital with minor injuries. 

The above video shows the ferry hitting the breakwater head-on, sending huge chunks of the concrete protective wall tumbling down onto the service road of the pier.

The company also said that the ferry was able to dock under its own power following the accident as the fault had lasted only two minutes and that the stranded passengers had been accommodated in hotels. However, there were some very angry scenes directly after the accident with passengers screaming and shouting at staff and demanding to be brought ashore or rescued immediately.

According to local media there has also been a diesel leak from the vessel due to the accident and the port of Las Palmas has put emergency measures in place to contain the spill and clean it up before it could reach the inlet of a nearby seawater desalination plant.

The ferry company Naviera Armas has stated that the damaged ship is structurally sound and only damaged a section of the prow which will be repaired promptly, but revised timetables for their ferry sailings will apply until this vessel is back in service.

Extremely clear vision

Yesterday the air was so clear that La Gomera's neighbouring islands could all be seen very clearly and seemed much closer than they actually are. Even Gran Canaria could be seen distinctly. I took above photograph from Juego de Bolas (near Agulo) with a simple little camera at about 10:30 am yesterday morning. La Palma's capital Santa Cruz can clearly be seen and even one of the observatories (red arrow) on Roque de Los Muchachos is distinctly visible - a distance far in excess of 100 kilometres as the crow flies.

Rarely can La Palma be seen from here with such clarity and in such detail. Extremely clear vision when distant objects seem much closer is generally considered a sign of coming rain and this morning the skies look fairly grey...

Air-to-air missile found on La Gomera

Image source: eldia.es

The explosives and bomb disposal unit of the Spanish police Guardia Civil had to be dispatched from Tenerife South airport to La Gomera after a viable air-to-air missile was found on La Gomera near the main road in the sleepy banana-growing village of La Dama on the south coast yesterday.

The damaged missile with the words 'cabeza de guerra', meaning warhead, measured three metres long and weighed 80 kilos and was successfully defused in what was said to be a 'difficult and very complex operation'. Its origin is most likely the squadron of jet fighters of the Spanish airforce which is based at Gando airport on Gran Canaria and probably 'lost' the missile during exercises when flying over La Gomera.

Thank God it didn't explode.

Swimmer bitten by shark

The tooth marks of the shark in the swimmer's arm. Image published on Twitter by the victim: @ojedathies

A 38-year-old doctor from Madrid on holidays with family on Gran Canaria had an unpleasant Christmas surprise when she was bitten in her lower arm by a shark while swimming only 20 yards out from a cliff near the beach at Arinaga, just south of the island's airport on Christmas Day.

Arinaga, Gran Canaria

The experienced hobby diver is a fellow of the European Board of Orthopaedic Surgeons and appeared unruffled by the ordeal. She smilingly declared that after hitting the shark hard with the arm that was not in the predator's mouth, ''the beast'' finally let go. The shark then vanished into the depths of the sea. The victim also stated that afterwards she was disappointed that it didn't return so she could have had a better look at the animal which she described as large and about 1,7 metres long. Immediately after the attack she attended the local health centre where she received a number of stitches in her arm and a course of antibiotics. She also said she was lucky that no tendons were severed.

Meanwhile biologists and other experts have issued statements that shark attacks in the waters around the Canary Islands are extremely rare and at most occur of once every 50 years and that Arinaga remains ''one of the best locations for swimming and diving''. From the victim's description and the corresponding bite marks the scientists conclude that the animal in question was probably a Silky shark (Carcharhinus Falciformis), one of the most abundant sharks in the seas between 40ºN-40ºS and highly migratory.

In Novermber 2013 a fisherman was bitten by a shark 22 miles off the coast of La Gomera after he had accidentally caught the animal.

Free concert tonight

German Lopez, the virtuoso timple player from Gran Canaria will give a free concert in the 'Auditorio Infanta Cristina' in Sebastian de La Gomera tonight at 8pm. The timple is a Canarian 5-stringed mini guitar and has a very pleasant sound. Lopez is a renowned exponent of the instrument and has ventured into many styles of music, including jazz and rock. He is also a composer and in tonight's concert he will introduce the audience to his latest CD called De Raiz, which features his own compositions. 

Don't miss this rare opportunity to hear one of the best instrumentalists in the Canary Islands.

Finally some rain yesterday

Yesterday up to lunchtime it was mostly sunny, but then within a short time it began to rain moderately and the rain continued for more than two hours. The image below shows people still enjoying the beach when the rain started to come down the valley.

This morning in Valle Gran Rey the skies are blue and the sun is shining, but a warning for heavy showers is still in place. 

Yesterday's rain was moderate here, but other areas had heavy rain and the mountain village of Chipude on La Gomera recorded 30,4 mm. Some areas of Gran Canaria got even more again with Cuevas del Pinar accumulating 55mm yesterday. 

The outlook is for the weather to improve, with just the occasional scattered shower expected next week - see top of sidebar for up-to-date details

Video of yesterday's heavy rain on Gran Canaria

While here on La Gomera the eastern half of the island had some good showers yesterday, here in Valle Gran Rey I'm still waiting for the rain. However, for today until 7pm we again have an 'orange' level rain alert, and from then until Sunday night a level 'yellow' one.

On Gran Canaria and on Tenerife some areas had torrential rain yesterday, and the town of Telde on Gran Canaria, where over 100mm of rain fell in a short time, even had to declare a state of emergency, but luckily no one was seriously hurt. See video below:

Man injured as gaping hole opens in road

©Twitter Las Palmas Police

IslandConnections.eu reports:

MAN INJURED 

‘Swallowed’ by hole in road

A Las Palmas man had a lucky escape after falling into a gaping hole which opened up in a road as he was standing on the spot.

28.05.2015 -  The 63-year-old required hospitalisation due to the injuries suffered when the ground below him gave way in Calle Artenara in the Las Torres industrial estate in the Gran Canaria capital.  A parked car was also damaged when it plunged into the hole, crashing to the bottom and ending up on its side.  

The spot is a loading bay outside a company based in the industrial estate and the mysterious subsidence led to a major operation to winch the vehicle out, once two other cars parked perilously on the edge had been removed.

An investigation has been ordered into the incident and engineers from the Roads Department and the city’s water company are examining how to rebuild the section affected.

Turtle flies from Ireland to Canary Islands for warmth

The Irish Independent in its online edition reported yesterday:

Leona the turtle goes home!

When turtles take flight.

After an epic swim which brought her thousands of miles from home and within minutes of death, Leona the loggerhead turtle finally flew back to warmer waters today.

The turtle, which was found washed up in Co Clare last year, was close to death but was slowly nursed back to health at the Galway Atlantaquaria.

For a number of months now her carers have been desperately trying to get Leona home but were finding it impossible to secure a warm flight back. Cold temperatures in a cargo hold could have killed her immediately.

But after an appeal for assistance in getting Leona home, Aer Lingus came to her aid, offering her a seat on one of their commercial flights back to Gran Canaria and warmer climes.  The turtle and her carers travelled to Dublin airport today to fly Leona home.

"We will absolutely miss her but we're just so happy that she's going home. We'll stay with her for a few days to get her settled in and hopefully we'll see her released back into the water before we leave," said Joanne Casserly, who has cared for Leona for the past year.

However, those who have followed her progress to date won't be left wondering about her future. A tracking device will follow the turtle, which is an endangered species for the next 17 months.

"We have no idea where she might go and it will be amazing to watch her. We just hope she doesn't come back to Ireland," added Joanne.

Aer lingus arranged to transport the endangered loggerhead turtle back to her home on the Canary Islands today. The airline whisked Leona to Gran Canaria at 14.10.

Aer Lingus carried Leona in a custom-made lined crate which was secured over two seats in the main cabin.

©  Irish Independent  Photo: Robbie Reynolds

Leona even got her own boarding pass, the airline says.

She was accompanied by Galway county vet Rita Gately and aquarist Joanne Casserley. The lid of the crate was removable to allow monitoring of the turtle’s wellbeing during the flight.

After her arrival at Las Palmas, Leona is to be cared for in a sanctuary until her release into the wild - which is expected to happen in the coming days.

In the ocean, the loggerhead turtle will have a GPS tracking device attached to her - enabling the aquarium and Leona’s many fans to track her progress.

Aer Lingus Director of Communications, Declan Kearney said:

“When we were approached by the County Veterinary Officer to assist with the transportation of Leona, we had no hesitation in agreeing. Leona is one of our more unusual passengers, but we are delighted to facilitate her return to her natural habitat.”

Canary Islands seen from space at night

The Canary Islands seen from space by night. The population centres on Tenerife and Gran Canaria produce the most light pollution while La Gomera and El Hierro islands are fairly dark in comparison. Image: nrlmry.navy.mil

Forest fire suspect to stand trial

IslandConnections.eu reports:

A forest warden accused of starting Gran Canaria's biggest ever forest fire is to go on trial seven years after the blaze.

Gran Canaria - 08.05.2014 - Juan Antonio Navarro is to be tried by jury at the Criminal Court on the recommendation of the local court of instruction in Arucas. Navarro is accused of deliberately cusing the blaze in the summer of 2007 which destroyed 20000 hectares of woodland and saw the authorities evacuate nearly 5000 people from their homes on the island. The court has banned him from leaving Spain until the trial and ordered him to deposit a massive bond of 70 million euros within 24 hours or have his assets seized. Given that he worked as a warden at the time, the island's Cabildo is jointly liable for any damages award made if he is convicted. News of the trial has been welcomed as it sends a clear message on the eve of the summer season which invariably sees forest blazes affect the Canaries, many of them caused deliberately. 

The reported plane crash that never happened

Great confusion in the Canary Islands on Thursday after a TUI plane was erroneously  reported to have crashed into the sea or made an emergency touchdown in waters a couple of miles off the coast of Gran Canaria, triggering a huge search and rescue operation, as IslandConnections.eu reports:

''Gran Canaria: - The incident is likely to trigger a review of procedures at the Canaries 112 emergency number, where staff are being blamed for sparking a massive scare at 3pm by Tweeting details of the alleged disaster without waiting for confirmation. News wires buzzed with details of the 'crash', which turned out to be a false alarm caused by a photograph of a cargo ship which had a large plane-type structure on board. From a distance it looked as if a plane had made a sea landing two miles off the coast of Gran Canaria and the photograph spread like wildfire on social media and in digital papers. Fifteen minutes later, as media including the BBC mobilised correspondents to gather information on what looked like a major incident, a statement was issued by the Airports Authority and then the government denying that a plane had crashed. For the rest of yesterday, various official bodies blamed each other for the scare, with staff at the 112 hotline insisting they had received confrmation from air traffic control that a plane was down. The Spanish Transport Minister, who was giving a press conference with the president of the Canaries when she was informed of the crash by aides, was said to be very angry at the embarrassing gaffe.''

It did look a bit like a plane in the sea off the coast of Gran Canaria (images above and below from Canarias7)

The folded Dutch floating crane (inset) that vaguely resembles a TUI plane was sailing past Gran Canaria.
Images source: canarias7 , where you can see lots of jokes about the incident. The social media are full of jokes about this embarrassing incident as this photo on Twitter (below) mocking the all-out mobilisation  proves:

Source: Canarias7

UPDATE:

There's no end to the jokes about the incident (see the two examples above).

The 112 emergency centres have published their radio conversations with air traffic control which show that the false alarm which triggered the all-out mobilisation of hundreds of rescue personnel was based on the confirmation by officers of the Spanish national police on shore that a plane was in the water - while all planes in Canary islands airspace were accounted for. 

Polcia Nacional 'plane spotting' on Thursday   Image: Canarias7

Better to shut up ?

IslandConnections.eu reported the following amazing story of Spanish arbitrary police:

Driver fined for 'talking too much' to passenger

A driver from Gran Canaria hit the headlines here and elsewhere over the week-end for receiving a fine for a bizarre reason. 

A photo of the traffic summons posted by Cadena Ser radio on its website

Agaete - 16.12.2013 - The 41-year-old van driver has been doing the rounds of TV and radio since Friday when he was pulled over and handed a summons because Civil Guard traffic branch officers considered that he was "talking to his passenger too much" to be able to concentrate on the road ahead. "I was stunned when I was stopped and I honestly thought someone was playing a joke on me. I did admit to talking to my van mate but I was doing what we all do when driving" said the flabbergasted driver, who has until 2 January to decide whether to admit the offence and pay the fine, in which case he will receive a 50% discount.

Major wildfire on Gran Canaria - updated

Photo: canarias7.es

A major wildfire with more than one front has been raging in the Cruz de Tejeda region on Gran Canaria since 11am this morning and the flames are still not under control as I write, forcing the evacuation of villagers in the area and road closures. At least three houses are said to have been burnt down. Let's just hope and pray that the showers expected for later today and tonight will materialise. The rising winds are not helping though.

Click for video:El viento propaga y dificulta la extinción del incendio de Gran Canaria - RTVC.es Noticias
Update at midnight:
The fires are still out of control, but weather conditions are 'favourable to have the blaze stabilised by Saturday or Sunday' according to officials. The canarias7.es photo below was taken just before dark. See their photo gallery. 
NB: Resorts and tourist facilities are NOT affected. The fires are in a remote rural area in the mountains and will hardly be noticed by most tourists.There is NO threat at all to touristic areas.

UPDATE Friday Oct. 25th 2013, 10am:
The situation appears to have improved a lot and according to some unconfirmed reports the fires have been brought under control.
+++At lunchtime it was officially confirmed that the situation has been 'stabilised'.

UPDATE Saturday, Oct.26th 2013: 
The fire has finally been extinguished.

Two Irishwomen arrested on Gran Canaria

ISLAND CONNECTIONS.eu reports:

''The two women were caught in a slot machine/games premises in Maspalomas trying to pay with a false €20 note. At the time of the arrest they were accompanied by their six children, all minors. Their explications for the origins of the note were found to be unsatisfactory and arresting officers found that they were in possession of more of the forged money, several receipts for purchases made in the area and a large amount of legal money in sterling and euros. Police found other businesses in the area where the pair had tried to pay with false notes, and believe that several more cases will come to light. It seems that on occasion the children were used to change the bills or pay for purchases. The women are in custody and the children have been sent to a centre for the protection of minors.''

Rescued turtles released

Two loggerhead turtles which were recently found injured on La Gomera's black sand beaches were first brought for veterinary treatment and recovery to a sanctuary on Gran Canaria and then flown back to La Gomera for release into the sea. One weighed about 150 lbs and had head injuries, the other one was found suffocating due to plastic material. The ever increasing huge 'islands' of accumulated plastic waste in the world's oceans is one of the greatest pollution problems we face.

Leaving La Gomera   (Image: GOMERATVDIGITAL)