20/02/2004 00:00
TW
0
By Humphrey Carter IT was warmer at midnight on Wednesday than it was at mid-day in the Balearics yesterday. The cold snap kicked in yesterday with the temperature in Majorca struggling to reach 7ºC while in Minorca the maximum was just 6ºC. Ibiza did slightly better with 10ºC. Director of the Balearic Met office, Agustin Jansa, said that the temperature was taken at mid-day “the warmest part of the day, although it was not very warm,” he said. “The midnight temperatures were as much as 4ºC higher in the case of Majorca.” Again, in Alfabia, the temperature dropped to zero and in LLuc, 5ºC. More snow fell above 900 metres as the persistent rain fell all day in the north and north east of the island. Some areas would have woken up to a white blanket of snow this morning and last night the Civil Protection department issued a warning to drivers out early this morning to be careful of black ice and the windy conditions.



There has been a spate of accidents over the past 36 hours and two more lives have been lost taking the death toll on the roads for this year to 27.
A slight improvement is expected today and the weather alert will probably be withdrawn later this morning.
Daytime temperatures are forecast to rise “moderately” and tonight a slight rise in temperature should be noticeable.
However, the strong northerly winds will continue this morning, before moving round to the east and easing slightly this afternoon.
With regards to the weekend, conditions will remain unsettled, but it should not be as cold as yesterday.