Tenerife Storms – Severe Weather Warning

Ironic it is that Tenerife has been lashed by severe storms for the second time in three weeks, another severe weather warning was issued earlier this week. Ironic it is because Tenerife was officially declared by NASA as having the best climate in the world, all year-round. Although exposed far out in the Atlantic Ocean, the Canary Islands do not normally have all those swirls we see on the weather charts which depict wind and precipitation. The Canary Islands are an exceptional weather phenomenon.

At the beginning of February, Tenerife was lashed for several days by thunderous storms and heavy rains which caused serious flooding and landslides in many areas. There are times on this Island when you wish for rain because it is very rare and only occurs to the north of the Island during the winter months and mostly at altitude. I had wondered whether I would ever see water running down the many Barrancas in Tenerife and during these three days they were running like alpine rivers awash to the sea. The Island was surrounded by a muddy ring of water for a while until the orangey coloured run off eventually dissipated deep into the Atlantic Ocean.

Less than three weeks later the same thing happened again. This time the thunderstorms were not only accompanied by heavy rain but also high winds up to 120km/hr winds. Wave after wave of storms occurred over a 48 hour period. A number of inter island flights were cancelled due to the high wind and schools were closed. The sea lashed the coastlines and in Playa San Juan part of the sea wall collapsed into the sea. This time the Island also suffered total power loss for several hours which affected one million people. That is all you need when you want to listen to the weather forecast to see how bad it is going to get and when it is all going to end. Most Tenerife radio stations went off air due to the power loss.

This evening the thunder storms stopped, the high winds dropped, power was restored and the sun even came out again just in time for sunset. Hopefully it will it be spring here again in Tenerife tomorrow but we still have snow on Mount Teide. On the south coast of Tenerife it is late evening and the temperature in around 18 degrees. Tomorrow hopefully we will see sunshine and the temperature rise to 22 degrees which is the norm for Tenerife at this time of year. Despite the February storms it would not be fair to complain about the weather and climate in Tenerife.

Blog posted by Expedia Property SL – Estate Agents Tenerife for Tenerife Properties