Weather

Cold autumn in the Balearics coming to an end

Snow earlier this month, but not for Christmas. | MDB

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma21/12/2017 00:00

Winter officially starts at 17.28 this afternoon, and the forecast is that it will be warmer than usual. Aemet believes that average temperatures will be up between one and three degrees over the first three months of next year. As for rain, "there is no clear sign" as yet, but January and February could be wetter than usual especially in the west of Spain.

For Spain as a whole, this autumn has been the driest this century and the third driest after the autumns of 1978 and 1981. It has also been very warm. But there have been variances. Autumn in the Balearics is described by Aemet as having been between "cold" and "very cold". There have also been episodes of very heavy rain in the Balearics - between 16 and 20 October and also between 2 and 5 November.

The average temperature for the country has been 16.7C, a value of 0.8C above the norm. This autumn has therefore been the eighth warmest since 1965 and the sixth warmest this century.

December, Aemet observes, started with some lower than normal temperatures - between one and three degrees lower. Cyclone Ana produced heavy rainfalls. The expectation is that December will end up having been one degree colder than normal, which could mean that 2017 is not the warmest year on record but just one of the three warmest.

As to the weather over Christmas, there's no chance of it being a white one. Christmas Day itself is currently forecast to be sunny and quite warm, with a high of 20C.