Cold in Casablanca by Kirsty McCabe
For once I’m going to have to agree with my boyfriend and admit that the weather is dull. However, that only applies to the UK where we’ve been stuck underneath an area of high pressure bringing cloudy day after cloudy day.
Elsewhere in the world the weather is rather more newsworthy. Although it is mild here in the UK, cold air has spread a long way south across a good deal of Europe recently, right across the western Mediterranean and into the northwest of Africa.
Saturday was another cold and wet day for the Balearic island of Menorca, off the eastern coast of Spain. The maximum temperature was a disappointing 6.2 C (43 F), well below the January average of 13 C (55 F), and it would have felt even colder in a 35 mph northerly wind. Add in some rain – a third of the monthly total falling in just 18 hours – and it must have felt rather miserable.
It was chilly in Casablanca as well. Morocco’s largest city can usually expect daytime highs of around 17.5 C (64 F) in January. On Friday, thermometers struggled to reach 10.5 C (51 F), and by Saturday morning temperatures had plummeted to -1 C (30 F), 8 degrees below the January average minimum for Casablanca.
Across Egypt, however, things have been hotting up. A slow-moving area of low pressure lying over the central Mediterranean has resulted in hot southwesterly winds blowing from the desert into Cairo. Temperatures here on Saturday soared to 29 C (84 F), 11 degrees above the January average maximum, and with all the sand blowing around the visibility dropped to just 3000 metres.
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