A sunny and warm climate in the Balearics this January.

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While the Balearics continue to suffer from a lack of rain, the same cannot be said for much of the rest of Spain. During January, rainfall was up to 300% greater than is normally the case in Castile and Leon, just one region of the country that was particularly wet last month. Others, mainly in the north of the country, included Galicia and Asturias. By contrast, most of Catalonia and Valencia as well as parts of Murcia and Andalusia (plus the Canaries and of course the Balearics) were exceptionally dry. Rainfall in these regions was typically only 25% of what is considered normal.

The unevenness in the weather is reflected in the January report from Aemet, the national meteorology agency. It has classified the month as having been very wet, with an average of 90 litres per square metre rainfall, which is more than double the figure from data gathered between 1981 to 2010, which forms the point of reference. Aemet also says, though, that January was extremely warm. For the country as a whole, the average temperature was 9.5C, which was 2.3 degrees above the monthly average. It was, therefore, the warmest January since 1961.

The final ten days of the month were, generally, the driest, but all regions had some rainfall with the exception of the Mediterranean coast, most of the Canaries and the Balearics. Among high temperatures for Majorca in January was the 25C in Puerto Pollensa on 8 January.