Today we have a yellow weather alert for the whole island, and most of the sea around it (the exception is the sea immediately east of the island). Tomorrow it becomes an orange alert for the whole island with a yellow alert for the sea. And for Thursday we have an orange alert again for the island, and an orange alert for the sea, except for the same patch of…
Some people think it never rains in La Palma. Well, it’s the greenest of the Canary Islands for a very simple reason. And right now, it’s busy getting greener. In fact, we have an official orange weather alert, and all school is cancelled for tomorrow, for the whole archipelago. The thing is, it’s not raining all that much, at last not here. It’s just like a wet day in Wales….
The road from Santa Cruz to the Roque is blocked by snow at least until midday tomorrow. It’s open on the Garafía side, but only to 4-wheel drive vehicles. Years ago, when I was on duty overnight at the Roque in winter, it was part of my job to check the road in the morning to see whether or not it was safe for cars to come up to site….
La Palma has a lovely sub-tropical climate. It’s called the land of eternal spring. But today the top of the mountain is covered with snow. Of course, we only ever get snow at high altitude, and these days, we don’t get snow every winter. But when it snows, it can dump several feet in one night. The Roque is one of the three best sites in the world for…
A pre-alert means don’t panic yet, but check before you go out. High winds are expected tomorrow (Thursday) in the eastern Canaries: Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, and Fuertaventura, and the day after (Friday) in all the islands. They expect gusts up to 75 km/h / 46 mph. That’s Force 8 on the Beaufort Scale: “Twigs broken from trees. Cars veer on road.” So Friday might not be the best day for…
cloud waterfall400 Jigsaw Puzzle Because the island sits in the trade winds, damp air hits the northeast of the island and has to rise, where it turns into clouds. Because La Palma has a north-south spine called the Cumbre Nueva, the cloud quite often reaches up to the ridge and then tumbles over as the cloud waterfall. This is extremely pretty, and best viewed from around the western side of…