Back to blue skies and drought

The first image shows the sky in Valle Gran Rey at dusk last night and the second was taken this morning. The low which stayed west of the Canary Islands for several days causing alarm and threatened to bring a lot of rain and wind is now dissipating. There were lots of thunderstorms near the islands still last night, but only a few scattered moderate showers came down over the weekend, and the drought continues. The high pressure over North Africa won out and the dry air from it consumed and blocked the moisture-laden air that the Atlantic depression had steered our way. Locals here were not impressed, but some are now depressed as their crops suffer.

Dust from Sahara for a few days

The current weather situation with very deep low pressure systems that are bringing storms to much of Northern Europe and very strong high pressure in the central Atlantic is now steering an easterly air current from North Africa directly over the Canary Islands, bringing some dust from the Sahara desert. This current is called calima in the Canaries and much dreaded. More information: Calima: Weather from the Sahara

This time of the year the heat wave normally associated with calima is more like a cool breeze as the Sahara is pretty cold in the depth of winter, and while the regions further up in the mountains may become a couple of degrees warmer, it is a bit colder than normal around the coast and in the lower regions. The presence of cold air in the upper layers adds a chill to this 'cold calima'. However it won't be as bad as last weekend and no warnings have been issued.

This present spell of calima is expected to last well into next week and once again the eastern islands are bearing the brunt of the dust due to their closeness to the Sahara while La Gomera will get less of it. Above is the forecast chart of the University of Athens' SKIRON model for noon today showing the relatively minor surface dust concentrations, and below the same for Tuesday, January 13th.