Tasarte, in La Aldea de San Nicolás (Gran Canaria), was one of the hottest places in the world last Saturday, with an average temperature of 41.9 degrees Celsius.
The data is provided by Juan Jesús González Alemán, PhD in Physics, senior State meteorologist and cyclone researcher, atmospheric dynamics/modeling and climate change at the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet).
Alemán has published on social networks a ranking by the Climate Change Institute of Mayne University (United States) of the 20 highest average temperatures recorded in 6,894 weather stations in the world, led by Khanaquin (Iraq) with 46.1 degrees Celsius. half.
Tasarte’s 41.9 equals the average temperature recorded in another Iraqi town, Diwaniya, in eleventh place.
The maximum last Saturday occurred at 4:20 p.m., 45.8 degrees Celsius, and the minimum, at 2:30 a.m., 34.6 degrees.
The doctor in Physics explains in his profile on social networks that part of the “fault” for this high average temperature lies with the geographical situation of this town in Gran Canaria: located inside a valley with the Inagua massif to the north, with a vertical wall of 1,000 meters in front.
He adds that when the wind blows from the north, which is usual in situations of strong trade winds and robust inversion, the phenomenon known as “shuffling” occurs.
These are the so-called “slope winds”, which, under certain atmospheric conditions, are forced to descend down the slope of the mountains with the consequent adiabatic heating, and which, according to González Alemán, could be the reason for the abrupt rise of almost ten degrees overnight, until reaching 41 degrees.
It indicates that the phenomenon of “shuffling” is “relatively common” in the Canary Islands, but what is “probably exceptional” about this episode is its intensity, without ruling out that it has occurred other times in recent years, since there is no “exhaustive record “.
