August in Culebrón

These are the official weather figures for Pinoso in August.

The hottest day was the 10th of August when the temperature reached 44ºC. The coldest night was on the 5th when the temperature dropped to 14.5ªC.

Averaging out daytime highs and nightime lows the average temperature across the month was 27.6ºC.

There were 28 cloudless days and it only rained on the 30th when we got 19 litres per square metre.

Just a little post script. We're back in Cartagena now and the maximum minimum thermometer I left here shows a high of 32ºC and a low of 24ºC for all the days from early July to the end of August. That's quite different to Culebrón.

Sounds

Sitting in the garden, reading. There's a breeze, hair dryer warm. The air sort of crackles. Things crack and jump with the heat. The traffic on the main road makes a whooshing sound. Bare metal burns. The principal colour is bright. The principal sound is the song of the cicadas. The air is alive with the sound. It's been like that for weeks

And then the Spanish neighbours came; with friends. Maybe for the weekend, maybe for the August fortnight and now the cicadas have competition. The difference is that the Spaniards never stop.

For goodness sake - get a grip

The maximum temperature in Stavanger, yesterday was 16ºC and the minimum was 11ºC. In Kirkwall, on Orkney 14/10ºC. In London 23/13ºC. In Alicante, just down the road, it was 29/20ºC and in Doha in Qatar 45/31ºC. No real surprises there then.

The highest temperature ever recorded in Spain is 47.8ºC in Murcia on 29 July 1976. Murcia is about 50 minutes from here by car.  The highest temperature ever recorded in England is 38.5ºC in Faversham, Kent on 10 August 2003. No big surprise there either.

Over the winter our perception was that Cartagena was warmer than Culebrón. In summer it's just the reverse; warmer by day in Culebrón but still warmer overnight in Cartagena. We think that it's a lot stickier in Cartagena now than in Culebrón. The figures for yesterday bear out our perception. Cartagena max. 29.5ºC, min. 21.2ºC, humidity 65%; Culebrón (Pinoso really) max. 30.3ºC, min. 15.4ºC, humidity 58%.

It's a while since I've been in the UK in summer but, if I were to describe June, July and August in England I would say that it stops being cold, that there will be two or three weeks worth of sunny, warm, dry days but that even when it's not sunny, dry and warm it's perfectly pleasant. That doesn't mean there won't be a couple of days when you'll need a raincoat or a jacket in the evening. You may even need to fire up the heating a couple of days but it's not like January. And yes, I have heard that it has been an exceptionally poor summer so far in the UK. Nonetheless, if you know the UK I'm sure that you would agree that the above description is largely accurate.

In Spain, at least in Alicante and Murcia, I would say that June, July and August will be hot and dry.

So why oh why does everybody I talk to in Spain say, and I paraphrase, "Crikey, it's hot!" Are they surprised?

Variation on a theme

One certain way to bring the rain is to hang out some washing or maybe to wash the car. To bring on a heat wave wear a nice thick coat.

Well we've just spent hours cleaning the house and, coming in from the South there are some very dark clouds. I don't think it's rain; it could be smoke from the forest fire that's burning out of control in Valencia at the moment or, more likely, it's a dust cloud blowing in from North Africa ready to coat all our newly cleaned surfaces with a layer of orange dust.

On being French

It's snowing outside in Culebrón at the moment. It's not snowing hard, it's not snowing properly but it is definitely snowing. This is not surprising. We are at 600 metres after all.

Nor is it the Ukraine. People are not freezing to death on the streets but it's not exactly warm either. Down in Cartagena people were complaining about the daytime temperature having dropped to 10ºC and overnight to 4ºC but when the Cartagena Red Cross set up an emergency centre for homeless people they couldn't find any takers even for their thermoss of hot coffee.

Here in Culebrón it was -4ºC last night. Mild in comparison to so many places. Nonetheless our house is very cold. We've been wearing coats inside all weekend and our pipes freeze each night. We've had no water at all until mid afternoon when the cold water comes back. We've not had hot water all weekend.That's why we're French. Plenty of perfume and deodorant but almost no soap and water.

A change in the air

There was a haze of steam vapour. The drops of water coalesced into little rivulets and ran down the mirror. Something was different

I'd just finished my morning shower and I realised that, for the first time in a couple of months, the temperature difference between shower water and environment was enough for to produce condensation. A tangible change.

There was a storm last night; big fat raindrops then a torrential downpour that bounced and shouted for a while. That's not the difference; that's not the change. The difference is the calendar.

When Spaniards talk of the summer they seem to mean July and August. There appears to be an almost magical relationship here, at least in my mind, between the date and the weather. It will be September on Thursday - summer will be gone.

To put my money where my keyboard is I predict now that the next big change will be on 1 November. Mark it in your diary now and hold me to account. Expect me to complain how autumn has suddenly become chill winter

Nice and warm outside

As we left Cartagena yesterday it was a pleasant, sunny day and 18ºC. Six hundred metres higher in Culebrón we were down at 15ºC but it was still sunny and pleasant. Inside the house though it was pretty arctic with the motionless cool air in the living room literally taking my breath away.

One of the photos has the cat Eduardo sitting in front of one of the gas heaters that we use to keep the rooms warm. In the living room we also set the air conditioner to heat, that plus two gas heaters and we can get the room nice and warm. The trouble is that the heat just vanishes as soon as we stop pumping the calories in. The other photo with those nice air gaps around the kitchen door perhaps indicate why!

Alicante country houses of a certain age just aren't insulated in any way.

And it's cold

Bit miserable in Culebrón today. Maggie is upset about losing her break in the UK because of the unofficial strike by the air traffic controllers. I'm fed up because of the accusations at work that I smell like an old tramp which may lead to me losing my wage and then, on top of that, it's freezing in this house.

Now I know a bit of frost is nothing if you live in Bradford or Burgos but it's pretty unusual in Alicante and it's more of a shock to us because of the contrast between our weekday residence and inland Culebrón. Yesterday was chilly; pullover and sports jacket weather in Cartagena (11ºC) but 600 metres higher and I'm worried about the pipes freezing and reduced to wearing socks in bed.

Roaring log fires

Down in Cartagena it's still a toss up as to whether you will need a jacket to go out. A shirt or a light pullover usually does the job but up here in Culebrón it is distinctly cooler - read cold.

The house is built to keep cool, not warm, and coming inside is like entering an ice box. Normally we pump heat into the living room from a couple of calor gas heaters after we've used the heat setting on the aircon unit to get the room to a reasonable temperature. Yesterday though it was raining too so we decided to stay in and, for the first time this year, we lit the log burner. Warm hands, warm feet - luvverly.

Sunday afternoon every day?

I only cleaned this little blighter two days ago!

It ain't half hot mum

It isn't really. The highest temperature we've had here in Culebrón over the past few weeks has been 36ºC and normally daily maximums have been around 32ºC. For those dinosaurs amongst you that means our maximum has been about 97ºF and we're generally running at around 90ºF.

When we got back from holiday several of our English pals were keen to complain about the heat - suffocating, unbearable, nightmare - were common words. The complaints were nearly as loud as the moaning about the rain, icy winds and low temperatures of a few months ago. 42ºC was bandied about. At those sort of temperatures the State Meteorological Service starts issuing weather warnings along with advice about drinking plenty of water, wearing hats and buying a camel. It has been over 40ºC recently in several parts of Spain, it's been on the telly, but Alicante hasn't featured.

It's hot, no doubt about it, but it's far from unbearable. In the full sun (where the temperature zooms off the top of all the thermometers I own) the sweat will soak your clothes, dribble into your eyes and turn your hair into a dripping sponge but in the shade a heat haze just helps to increase the profits of beer and soft drink companies and it reminds me at least of one of the things I like about Spain. It's sunny. And I can't remember when it last rained.

Minimums, by the way, turn around twenty, it was 18ºC for instance last night so a perfectly pleasant temperature for sleeping.

Lies and white lies

Our house in Culebrón isn't well suited to the cold. The living room is warm enough with the log burner doing its stuff but the bedroom is like an icebox and our water has already frozen. The TV news this evening is predicting overnight temperatures of minus 7ºC for our area! This morning we awoke to find a light dusting of snow. It proved a good day to put up our Christmas tree. Odd when you think that on Thursday the temperature was over 20ºC in Cartagena.

Come to sunny Spain.

It's raining, it's pouring

Get to Know Spain is a companion book for GCSE exams written by Rosemary Hunt and first published in 1980. In the section on climate it says - In most parts of Spain the climate is extremely harsh.

As I've said in another post we haven't seen much rain over the last two or three months but for the past couple of days the temperatures have dropped (27ºC daytime 15ºC overnight) and the sky has been threatening rain. And today it came. Buckets and buckets of the stuff.

As usual our interior patio started to fill with water and I had to wade out to unblock the drain, our next door neighbour is apparently, as I type, trying to stop the water flowing down our joint track from carving out a mini version of the Grand Cañon, our aljibe, the thing that collects run off water, is overflowing, we keep losing the electric for a few seconds after every lightning flash and we've unplugged all the computers from the mains just in case. The hail was bouncing off the cars and patio furniture whilst the thunder crashed and the lightning crackled. The cat doesn't seem too concerned by the celestial fireworks but he did come to join us - safety in numbers I suppose.

When it rains it's often like this and when the wind blows it destroys things. It hails a lot. And of course all summer long everyone goes around complaining about the heat. Extremely harsh seems a fair enough description Rosie!

Phew! What a Scorcher.... or not

Because I used to own an anorak I keep records of maximum and minimum temperatures.

I thought it would be reasonably interesting to log the summer temperatures bearing in mind that it was much cooler in Ciudad Rodrigo (where we were living in June) than it has been in Alicante for July and August.

Despite what our friends and neighbours say the temperature only reached 40ºC on one day, the 24 July, and our lowest overnight temperature here in Culebrón was 16ºC on 18 July.

Looking at the spread of temperatures I would say that a sunny and warm day with a minimum of 19ºC and a high of 32ºC would be the most typical whilst we've been here in Culebrón.

Turned out nice again then.

Was Barti wrong?

When we first moved to the countryside Maggie was still working at Newton College and she asked the gardener there, a bloke called Bartolomé, how to care for palm trees (we have one in the garden.) "Do nothing, just enjoy it," he said, "Palms, olives, pines and figs don't need any help, they belong here, they can cope."

We've been back in Culebrón from the beginning of July and, so far as I know, we've had two rain showers, one lasted a couple of hours and the other just a few minutes. It's been warm too, mid 30s for weeks and weeks. Splendid weather.

We just noticed that the small fig tree, the one that gives the green figs, was looking a bit sad. Maybe it's hosepipe time.